


Settling the New Stars

by SunshineFlower345



Category: Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates, Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, Family Fluff, Gen, Illnesses, Multi, Odin/Leo/Niles is one-sided on Odin's part, Other Ships Not Mentioned in Tags, Post-Canon, References to Illness, Tags May Change, and by that I mean Camilla threatens to kill someone, not really but they think so so I'm tagging it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-21
Updated: 2019-03-01
Packaged: 2019-03-07 14:40:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 40,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13436955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SunshineFlower345/pseuds/SunshineFlower345
Summary: Five years after the defeat of Grima, and four years after the disappearance of three shepherds, life in Ylisstol has returned to peace. The most pressing issue is a disease effecting the young children. Lucina and her friends grapple with caring for the sick, and worrying that there is something more to this seemingly innocent cold.





	1. Sickness

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to say this before anyone starts reading that I made Nah pregnant in the story. I choose to view the Manakete characters as looking like adults except they're short, but I fully understand why people don't and I didn't want to gross anyone out.  
> I tried to rewrite the story without that subplot before but it didn't work out. One of the themes I was trying to get at was that everyone was at different stages in their lives, and Nah and Yarne struck me as being the couple out of the kids that would want children the fastest. 
> 
> And other than that, everyone's parents should be mentioned in the story but let me know if it's confusing!

The pace of life in the Ylissean castle had been frantic after Grima had been defeated. Though through the years it had calmed significantly, or perhaps it was just that the residents had gotten used to the pace. Lucina walked down the hall looking for her family, she’d been worried about her little self who’d collapsed during breakfast that day.

“Father, have you heard from Aunt Lissa?” She asked when she eventually found her parents in a lounging room. Olivia looked over her eldest and gave her a soft smile. She was always telling Lucina not to stress about things like this, as if Lucina could help it.

“Ah! Yeah Lissa said she’ll be fine, that she’s just got a cold. Nothing to worry about,” Chrom walked over and placed a hand on Lucina’s shoulder as she let out a breath, glad to know her younger self would be fine.

“Did Aunt Lissa say she needed any medicine? I’ve been thinking about going out into town today anyway, so I can buy it,” Lucina shifted the pack on her back, she’d actually made plans to meet up with Laurent and Kjelle that afternoon.

Her mother stood up and offered her a sheet of paper she noticed had her Aunt’s handwriting. “She said that we were short on these things, though if you’re going into town please take care not to go alone.”

“I’ll be fine mother,” Lucina smiled.

“Yeah! ‘Cus I’ll protect her!” The family turned to the voice that had been keeping quiet. Inigo ran over and stood protectively in front of his older sister’s legs with a proud smile on his face.

Lucina had to hide her smile behind her hand to keep her brother’s pride intact, their mother made no efforts to do the same, leaning down and hugging Inigo.

“Aah! No, Mom!” He squawked and both Lucina and Chrom burst out laughing.

Recovering from her laughing fit Lucina took a knee to be eye level with her brother, “Your desire to protect your family is noble, but you know the one who needs protection the most right now is Little Lucina.”

Inigo’s eyes lit up, “You’re right! I’m going to go stand guard on her room right now!” And just like that he was gone running out of the room leaving Olivia and Lucina to push themselves off the ground.

“Well at least what Lucina has isn’t contagious,” Olivia laughed when they were all up.

“No, I think he just got your immune system…” Chrom muttered and Olivia turned to her husband and asked what he had meant by that. Lucina left the room as her parents devolved into an argument about if Olivia had ever been sick since moving to Ylisstol.

Lucina left the room with a warm feeling that her family always gave her, though this feeling always reminded her of a missing piece in said family.

Determined not to start feeling sad however she shoved the thoughts of her brother aside as she walked to the castle entrance.

“Oh! Hey Lucina! Are you heading into town too?” Lucina turned to the source of the voice and found her cousin Morgan running toward her. behind the youngest cousin Brady was also walking at a more normal pace.

“Oh, good morning you two. Yes, I have to get some medicine for little Lucina,” She said and showed the two of them the list she’d gotten from her mother. Brady leaned in when he noticed his own mother’s hand writing.

“You too huh?” He asked. Lucina proceeded an eyebrow at that.

“Little Brady’s caught a cold too,” Morgan filled in her cousin as they all started walking to town. “And Little Morgan is kind of in a constant state of being sick? Mother says it’s normal for babies though.”

“Hmmm,” Lucina thought. Robin and Emmeryn had seemed exhausted the last few times she’d seen them. “Morgan, do you remember anything about being sick as a child?” Morgan had said she’d had memories of being with her father than there might be a chance.

“No, none,” Her cousin said. “And I don’t seem to get sick all that much now either, but like I said Mother and Father don’t seem worried…”

“Well at least Owain hasn’t caught anything yet,” Brady added to the conversation. “But that’s cause Ma’ all but put him in a glass ball when Brady caught a cold.”

Morgan and Lucina both laughed at that, Maribelle had always been over protective of her children getting sick, even when Brady was a baby himself.

“Oh! There’s the apothecary!” Morgan called out and dragged her cousins in a different direction. Lucina vaguely wondered how Morgan had been able to spot the small store so quickly.

“… I come here a lot, cause my younger self is always sick,” Morgan said. Apparently, she and Brady and been glaring too hard and Morgan had guessed what they were thinking. She threw the door to the store open and walked right up to the old lady behind the counter.

Brady left to look at the herbs that were on display, Lucina stood about halfway between her two cousins waiting for them to be done so she could get her own herbs.

“I’m going to need 2 more doses, one for a five year-old and one for a four year-old,” Morgan told the store owner who gave her a questioning look before ducking under the counter to get the materials. “Must be one hell of a flu season coming if so many in the castle are already sick,” She muttered and passed Lucina.

Brady helped the lady find the herbs she needed and soon enough hey were all walking out of the apothecary with the medicine.

“Kinda scary thinking about a bad flu season huh?” Morgan thought out loud and both her cousins flinched. “Like Ylisse has been doing so well the past few years, don’t you think it’s time for a plague or something?”

“Bite your tongue,” Brady snapped at her and she started laughing as she ran away.

Lucina tried not to think about the negative effects a bad flu season could have on the country, but soon she was imagining piles of dead bodies all sick from the flu. Maybe she could help Brady or Lissa with rounds to the smaller villages to mitigate that from happening.

“Luce, knock it off. You’ll bite through the skin,” Brady’s words brought her back to reality and she pulled her thumb from her mouth, noticing that it was red and swollen. Biting her thumb was a habit she’d thought she’d gotten rid of when the war had ended, but lately she’d been slipping back.

“Thanks Brady,” She muttered as her younger cousin gave her a soft smile.

“Hey! Look!” Morgan burst out from the front of their group. “Yarne! Nah! Over here!” Lucina looked past Morgan’s head down the street to see the young couple waving to Morgan and started to move in their direction.

“And a good afternoon to you too Morgan,” Nah said sarcastically at her friend when the two groups merged into one. Lucina hadn’t thought it had been all that long since she’d last seen Nah, but the roundness of her stomach said otherwise.

“How are you holding up through pregnancy?” Lucina asked Nah at the thought. The Manakete grumbled at that and her husband let out a play scared laugh.

“She’s been banned from transforming for the next two months,” He said carefully and then pulled her dragon stone out from his chest pocket before slipping it back. “It’s normally not a problem for Manakete or Taguel babies. But since we’re both half human we don’t know how much human went into the child.

“Oh, that makes sense,” Brady muttered.

“Yeah it does, and I understand that fact better than anyone else, so why can’t I keep my dragon stone myself?” Nah turned to her husband. Yarne flinched at his wife’s glaze but didn’t back down.

“I’ll let you have it if there’s an emergency,” He muttered as she maintained eye contact. Lucina laughed into her hand.

“He just wants to keep you safe you know,” She told Nah. Nah’s gaze lightened up.

“Yeah, I know. I just want to be able to protect him too you know?” She said with her cheeks going red. “Anyway! Did you guys already hear?”

Lucina, Morgan and Brady were all interested by that sudden change of topic. “No, I don’t think we have,” Morgan replied.

“Noire and Gerome are going to be back in town for the rest of the month,” Yarne filled them in. The two members of their group had gone back to their homelands with their parents when the war ended so it was a rare occasion for everyone to be together.

“Oh wow! Really?!” Morgan burst out in joy.

“We should start planning a lunch with all of us then,” Brady thought to himself.

“Yeah about that,” Nah trailed off. “We were hoping to not be the ones who have to tell everyone?”

“Oh! That’s fine. Lucina’s seeing Kjelle and Laurent today, so she can tell them!” Morgan answered the question her friend was asking before she asked it. Though the statement did leave her eldest cousin with a few questions.

“Morgan?” Lucina asked, trying to ignore the tint of red on her cheeks. “How exactly do you know my schedule?”

Morgan only laughed at that question turning slightly away, “I am a master tactician, as such I will never reveal my sources.”

Nah turned to Yarne to try and hide the laugh she let out, which only further embarrassed Lucina. Brady was eager to get the conversation moving forward though.

“Well in that case I’ll let Cynthia know, that should be everyone right?” He asked the group.

“Yeah! It’ll be great for all of us to hang out again,” Nah said. The group seemed happy to be just catching up, but Lucina eventually needed to go get ready for her other engagement.

“Morgan, may I have the medicine?” Lucina asked. Her cousin gave her a knowing smile but handed the bag of herbs to her without comment.

“Medicine?” Yarne asked and leaned a little closer to see the bag.

“Little Lucina and Brady both caught colds,” Lucina explained. “And baby Morgan is sick too.”

“Hmm, that’s not good,” Nah thought. “I was talking with Mother and she said that my younger self wasn't feeling well either…”

Yarne yelped at what his wife was suggesting, but Brady butted in and told her that it actually made perfect sense for children to be getting sick around this time of year and it would even help the younger ones form better immune systems.

Lucina said her goodbyes to the group once more and they all sent her off on her way.

 

 

Laurent’s house was always calming to Lucina. Not in any kind of conventual way, he and his mom were always throwing books and parts of science experiments over the tables and floors. But the house screamed Laurent out of every corner, and it made Lucina happy to know that at least one of them had become completely comfortable in the past.

In that moment Lucina was sitting at the table with Kjelle to her right and the younger Kjelle hanging on her side, the younger girl had always been infatuated with her older sister. A stack of books divided Lucina from the other two. Lucina blew on her tea a little and took a sip while they waited for Laurent to come back from putting some kind of egg thing in his room.

“Kjelle did you cut your hair?” Lucina asked the younger girl. Little Kjelle’s hair color closer resembled her mother’s shade of red than her father’s shade of black like it was destined to fade into. She beamed at Lucina’s comment and Kjelle hid her laugh behind her hand.

“You noticed?! I wanted to get my hair cut like big sister!” She smiled and hugged her sister’s arm. Kjelle blushed and tried to hide it with her free hand. Now that Lucina was thinking about it, Kjelle had let her hair grow when they were first growing up.

“Yes, and I think that you look great,” Kjelle said.

A crash brought the attention of the three girls to the other people in the room currently.

Miriel was five months pregnant and it showed in the way she moved, not that it was slowing her down. Lucina thought that it would be weird to see Laurent as the youngest again, they had all gotten used to him being the eldest since they came back. And that wasn't even thinking about the fact that Nah and Yarne were going to have a child older than him, which was a fact no one ever brought up because it made everyone uncomfortable.

“Miriel, I know this isn’t any of my business,” Sully started at her friend. The other women turned and scowled at her. “But you guys could use some like, hired help?”

“An assistant?” Mielie asked and then scoffed at the idea. “They would only get in the way, I know where everything is.”

“You could at least take it a little easier…” Sully muttered and Miriel was now arguing with her.

Kjelle and Lucina exchanged an awkward glance at each other as Laurent came back into the room.

“Mother, do you need help with anything else?” He asked in an attempt to get her to sit down. She said something about changing the beakers holding some acid and Laurent let out a sigh and passed his mother to Sully so she wouldn’t try to help.

“Oh, did you guys hear?” Lucina asked. She could bring this up now that Laurent was in the room. “Noire and Gerome’s families are going to be in town for the rest of the month.”

“Oh really?” Kjelle asked. “I thought Noire’s family had just gone back to Plegia.”

“the longer they spend away from that place the better,” Sully muttered and Miriel told her not to say that, the place had been getting better over the years, and besides, Tharja and Henry fit in there just fine.

“ahk!” Laurent burst and caught the attention of the room.

“Are you alright?” Lucina asked. Laurent held a beaker in one hand and moved the thumb of the other to his moth for a second.

“yes, I’m fine, I just uh, need another beaker,” He muttered.

“Oh! I can do that!” Little Kjelle spoke up and then crawled over a stack of books on her way to the floor. Kjelle reached out trying to help but it was unnecessary in the end. Little Kjelle landed on her feet and ran to the kitchen as Sully let out a laugh.

“She’s just like you, you know? You don’t have to baby her,” Sully told her elder daughter who pouted in reply.

“I’m not so sure about that,” Miriel said. “I’ve been doing research into what makes a human personality,”

“Mother,” Laurent tried to scold but she ignored him.

“What do you mean?” Kjelle asked, clearly interested in what Miriel had to say.

“Research indicates that the personality is formed by the experiences we have around us, not by anything genetic, meaning that little Kjelle is not like you at all. She’s her own person with her own formative experiences.”

“That’s only one theory though Mother,” Laurent said annoyed.

Lucina looked to Laurent to find the source of his irritation, he seemed to be over reacting to something she’d consider common sense, wasn’t that why they’d gone back in time?

“Is there something else going on Laurent?” Lucina asked before she’d stopped to think about whether it was a good idea or not.

“What? No there’s not-“

“I’m not going to be naming the child Laurent,” Miriel cut her son off. That startled both Kjelle and Lucina.

“What? Why?” Kjelle asked, and Lucina could see Sully giving her friend a confused glance.

“For the reasons I just went over. The child will not have to grow up in the same manner Laurent did so there is no reason for him to walk the same path.”

“I’ve told you, the reason we came back was so that our younger selves could see peace,” Laurent tried to argue, and his mother seemed willing to defend her stance. Suddenly, the room was filled with the sound of glass shattering.

Standing up and running toward the kitchen Lucina and Kjelle found Ricken standing over a collapsed little Kjelle. Kjelle wasted no time getting to her and holding her up while Ricken picked up the pieces of glass.

Sully cursed behind Lucina and made her way to her daughters. “Shit, is she alright?” Sully asked her older daughter.

“nnnhh, ‘m fine,” Little Kjelle muttered and tried to sit up on her own. Kjelle wrestled her back down and felt her temperature.

“You’re burning up!” She almost yelled. “Why didn’t you say something?”

“Cus, if it was you, you’d have kept going and been cool about it,” Little Kjelle muttered.

Lucina felt her face run cold, if little Kjelle was sick and hiding it, who else could be too? Inigo? Inigo was definitely the type of kid to do that.

“I, forgive me, I have to go,” Lucina muttered. Miriel, Ricken and Sully all nodded and excused her.

 

 

Lucina ran through the streets of Ylisstol as fast as she could. She’d spent more time with Kjelle and Laurent than she’d originally planned on and now the sun was setting in the sky.

Lucina made her way into the castle and ran through the outside garden looking for her brother.

She found him relatively quickly, he was where he always was practicing his dancing. Lucina, even in her panicked state still had the brain power to note that the four year-old had almost over taken her in terms of dancing skill.

“Hey big sister- Ahh!” Inigo didn’t get to finish his greeting as Lucina threw herself down onto her knees in front of the boy and grabbed him to get his temperature. He wasn’t hot though, if anything he was colder than he should have been. “Sister! Please!” Inigo yelled in her arms and she turned the boy around to face her.

“Inigo. Promise me, you’ll tell me the moment you don’t feel good okay?” Lucina asked him. The child seemed confused but eventually nodded to her request.

At the sight of his agreement Lucina let out a pressure that had been building in her arms. Inigo let out a yawn and Lucina agreed to take him back to his room. It was good that not all of the kids were sick wasn’t it? She thought about it while she sat waiting for Inigo to fall asleep.

The sun had finished setting by the time little Inigo was asleep and the room was on illuminated by the silver glow of the moon through the windows, it was on a night like this one that her brother, cousin and friend had slipped away leaving only cryptic letters in their wake.

The thought caused Lucina to sigh, and when she looked down to find Inigo still fast asleep She stood up and walked over to a closet. That closet had been where the family had stashed all of Inigo’s things after it was clear he wasn’t coming back any time soon. It felt like forever since she’d last opened it.

Lucia sighed again as she reached for the letter he’d left his family. Looking it over she wondered if the tear marks on the paper were from Inigo himself or one of her parents doing the same thing she was. She wasn’t going to cry though. She definitely wasn’t going to cry. Definitely.

“Big sister? Is that you?”

Lucina turned around startled by the noise. She wasn’t sure what she was expecting, maybe her missing brother a dark part of her brain said, but she was greeted by the visibly sick image of her little self.

“Lucina, you shouldn’t be up,” She tried to chide the other girl, but her voice wavered and cracked. Little Lucina just looked at her before walking over and sitting down next to her.

“I’ve been sleeping all day, it’s fine,” She muttered. Lucina could feel her fever through her sleeve and that made her think ‘no, it’s not.’

Little Lucina seemed to be half asleep letting her eyes flutter open and closed as she leaned on her big sister. “I had a dream about him, the older Inigo,” She confessed, and Lucina turned to listen to what she had to say. “I don’t think it was based on memories but, he’d come home and you, and Mom and Dad were all so happy. That’s why I came here…”

Lucina moved to pull her younger self into a hug. She’d always thought that her desire to take on other people’s problem had been a side effect of growing up during the war. Seeing the way her little self behaved made her think that it was something rooted deeper than that.

“Hey, so what was he like? Your Inigo?” Little Lucina asked after a beat of silence. Lucina let out a quiet laugh and picked up her younger self.

“He was the biggest flirt you could imagine,” Lucina giggled when her little self crinkled her nose at the statement. “He was still shy though, it was funny the kinds of situations he’d put himself in.”

Little Lucina seemed enthralled by her story as Lucina closed the door to their brother’s room. In that moment Olivia saw her daughters and came running over.

“Lucina!” She said rather loudly to get their attention. Both girls shushed their mother and gestured to the door. Olivia got the message and nodded.

“Lucina, why did you leave your room, you really scared Aunt Lissa and me,” Olivia said, and little Lucina buried her face into Lucina’s scarf.

“I was just going on a walk,” She muttered.

“You should be resting dear,” Olivia said and gestured for Lucina to pass her.

“But I’ve been sleeping all day!” Little Lucina whined.

“Oh Mother,” Lucina spoke up and winked before little Lucina could turn around. “I was thinking that we haven’t danced together in a while, maybe we could go to Lucina’s room and practice?”

“That sounds like a lovely idea,” Olivia agreed, and little Lucina was too tired to see their plan as they all walked to her room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! =^_^= This story has been on my mind for a long time and I'm super exited to finally be polishing it to share!


	2. Outset pt. 1

_The moon had risen on Ylisstol, and it was late enough that most houses were finally blowing out their candles to get a good night’s rest. One house however, had needed to relight their candles when their child threw up._

_“AAAAAHHHH-hic-aaahhh,” The younger Cynthia cried as Cordelia bounced her daughter on her leg, trying to hiccup her. Her older version hovered over her wiping her mouth clean._

_“There! Now you’re all clean! Doesn’t that feel better?” Cynthia flashed a toothy grin in an attempt to cheer up her younger self._

_“Hic- No…” The younger Cynthia admitted and Cordelia shushed her and went back to rubbing the toddler’s back._

_The family’s other daughter, Severa, rolled her eyes and turned her attention away from them._

_On the other side of the room Sumia rushed to crush the herbs in the mortar. Libra had given them to her earlier that day saying that they would help keep Cynthia’s nausea down. When she deemed the mixture done, Sumia dumped the mush into a small bowl of water._

_“She’s not gonna want to drink that,” Severa commented as she watched her mother’s actions on the tips of her toes to see over the counter._

_“It’s Medicine dear, it’s not meant to look good,” Sumia told her and ruffled her hair as she walked over to the rest of their family._

_“Here,” She said quietly and handed the bowl to her wife. Severa sat down on a chair a little ways away since she’d been instructed to not stay too close to her little sister while she was sick._

_“Alright, Cynthia here,” Cordelia said and tried to get the toddler to drink the medicine. After a second Cynthia coughed and spit the mixture out and started crying again._

_“Cynthia,” Sumia said worried. Cordelia handed the mixture to the older Cynthia and went back to rubbing her daughter’s back._

_“No, I dun wanna!” She cried._

_“Are you sure?” the older Cynthia started and held the bowl in one hand to show it off. “Because, in this bowl is a magic elixir!”_

_Little Cynthia pouted at her older self, clearly not buying the cheap attempt at getting her to drink it. “I Don’t wanna!” little Cynthia said louder._

_Severa sighed at the mess and got off her chair to walk to her little sister. “You’re being such a baby!” She said and Sumia bended down to try and stop her. “It’s medicine, you don’t take it for the taste, so just drink it!”_

_“Severa dear, that’s more than enough,” Sumia whispered to the girl._

_But all the same little Cynthia pouted and motioned for her eldest sister to give her the medicine. Cynthia handed it to Cordelia who helped the younger one finish the bowl of gunk off._

_Sumia turned around relived that she’d drank it and little Cynthia stuck her tongue out at her sister. Severa turned her head and clicked her mouth. She had to remind herself that she’d gotten what she’d wanted, Cynthia drank the medicine. So Severa was the one who won that round._

_Cordelia cradled Cynthia in her arms and whispered something to her wife before leaving, probably to put Cynthia down for the night again._

_“I know it’s been a stressful, night” Sumia said to her two other daughters. “Do you two want some hot coco before going back to sleep?”_

_Both girls agreed readily, and when Cordelia slipped out of the nursery she was greeted by the site of her family drinking warm coco from mugs and a mug left for her at the head of the table._

_“Thanks Sumia,” She muttered and kissed her wife on the cheek as she sat down. Cynthia laughed at the site and Severa stuck her tongue out in disgust._

_“Is she asleep?” Cynthia asked her mother after a pause._

_“Yes, she fell asleep right away. I think she’ll be fine by the end of the week,” Cordelia said. Cynthia and Sumia both visibly relaxed at the words. Severa clutched her mug even tighter at the words and clenched her teeth._

_“That’s great! Hey Severa, we should be careful not to catch it too though, or else Mom and Mother are gonna have to take care of us as well,” Cynthia smiled at her little sister. Her statement seemed to be a last straw for the little girl._

_“You don’t need to worry about catching it! Because it’s your fault she’s sick in the first place!” Severa yelled and her family flinched._

_“Wha…t?” Cynthia asked._

_“Everyone I know is sick! Except for me, Inigo and Owain!” The girl explained angerly. “And what do me, Inigo and Owain all have in common? Our older selves left because they, they knew their place!”_

_Cynthia had no way to respond to that, she tried to speak but couldn’t find her voice._

_“Severa! That’s enough! Speak no more!” Cordelia roared over her daughter and startled Cynthia from her other side._

_Severa had not taken the shouting well. Her eyes welled with tears under her mother’s fierce glare._

_“Cordelia!” Sumia yelled at her, and all at once Cordelia realized the Severa she’d just yelled at was not her eldest daughter, who’d disappeared years ago. She was her 3 rd child and needed to be treated as such. _

_The realization came too late as Severa jumped off her chair and ran to her room sobbing and slammed the door._

_Any silence that created was broken by the sound of little Cynthia crying in her room, she’d been woken up by the noise. Cordelia started to stand up but Sumia put her hand down on Cordelia’s shoulder._

_“You’ve done enough tonight, just go to sleep,” Sumia said and headed to put Cynthia back down. Cordelia rested her head in her hands._

_Cynthia stood up to try and go to sleep herself and her mother called after her, “It’s not your fault.”_

_Cynthia sighed and thought about what Severa had said. She muttered “You don’t know that,” Before closing her door quietly._

“And that’s about the gist of what happened,” Cynthia finished recounting what had happened the night before to her friends.

The ten of them were sitting in a somewhat small room in the castle around a low table. Laurent sighed when Cynthia finished and wrote down some notes. Noire sat nervously twiddling her thumbs as they all waited for someone to comment on little Severa’s theory about what was wrong with the children.

Lucina took a deep breath and the table turned to listen to her, she seemed to crack slightly under all their gazes, “Well that’s just one theory, it doesn’t necessarily have to be true…”

The group fell into another silence, the fact that was the best anyone could reply to the theory wasn’t hopeful.

“Little Noire hasn’t been healthy since her last birthday,” Noire muttered looking down and the group tensed again. No one had thought to ask Gerome or Noire how their younger selves were doing, having thought it was a cold going through Ylisstol.

“Cherche said that my younger self was sick as well, the main reason for this trip was to find him medicine,” Gerome added glumly, the fact they were sick too seemed to only prove the theory they were looking to refute.

“…Well,” Nah said into the silence that followed Gerome’s statement. 

“If it’s us, then we should leave,” Brady said darkly and looked at the center of the table. Hadn’t that been their plan in the first place? To leave when the war was won? But their parents had talked them out of it one by one.

“Were you listening to what I was saying?” Gerome asked sharply, that startled everyone at the table, Gerome had always been the one saying they didn’t belong and that they needed to leave and move on. “I don’t live with my family in Rosanne. Most of the time I’m across the continent from them, sometimes even the ocean. And my younger self is just as sick as the rest of them.”

It took the table a little while to process what he’d just said, being a continent or an ocean away was not going to make a difference.

“Then,” Morgan muttered, if the room hadn’t been scared stiff no one would have heard her. But they were, and they did, and Morgan found her voice eventually. “Then, what are you saying? What about Owain or Severa or Inigo?! You can’t be implying-”

“That they’re dead?” Gerome asked in a monotone, he had to know what he was doing. All of their siblings were currently in the room. And even when they weren’t, saying that word in relation to those three had been an unspoken taboo. “That’s exactly what I’m implying.”

“No.” Lucina said almost immediately after he finished speaking. There’s no way that any of them are dead, they said that they’d come back. Lucina held her glare on Gerome, but her lip quivered slightly at the idea.

“then you’d have us believe that they chose to leave us behind?” Gerome shot coldly. Lucina didn’t back down.

“Gerome that’s _enough_!” Kjelle of all people cut into the conversation. Off to her side Noire was trying to conceal the fact she was crying and Laurent handed her a handkerchief. “Even if that’s the truth, it doesn’t help our situation at all! We can’t all go and die.”

Everyone sighed, “Back to square one,” Yarne muttered.

“This is worse than square one, ‘cus now we’re all angry,” Brady said and shot a glare at Gerome. The other man just huffed and turned away.

“Maybe we can’t die but,” Laurent spoke for the first time since he’d sat down. “Maybe we can disappear.”

Noire and Morgan leaned over to see the book he was looking at finding the tome open to a page about Naga’s power.

“You mean we … go back?” Noire asked. Naga had struggled to bring them to the past, could anything have the strength to send them back?

“In a worst case, yes,” Laurent replied. “But there is a problem with that plan.”

“Me,” Morgan said quietly, suddenly realizing why he’d been looking into the goddess’s power. “We don’t know if Naga could send me to a future that’s not my own.”

“It’s not like our parents would let us leave anyway,” Cynthia said as she thought of the way her mothers had tried desperately to comfort her that morning. “ _There was no way it was your fault.” “Cynthia will get better and it will all blow over”_

“There is someone we can ask this,” Gerome stated. “Lady Tiki has me run errands every now and then. It wouldn’t be out of place for me to go visit her.”

“oooh, I don’t like this,” Yarne muttered at the idea of running away under their parents’ noses.

“perhaps we should just go talk with Lady Tiki, right now we’re not even sure if we’re the cause. She can give us the answers we need to make a final decision,” Laurent said and closed his book.

They all nodded and tried to ignore the guilt of basically planning on running away.

“Lucina?” Olivia’s voice echoed into the room as the door creaked open and the queen walked in. “Oh, I’m sorry. Am I interrupting something?” She asked.

“No of course not Mother,” Lucina stood up and walked over.

“Well I just wanted to tell you that we’re serving Lunch in the main hall, you’re all expected but you don’t have to come if you’re busy.”

“Thank you, Mother,” Lucina said and Olivia left the room.

Lucina closed the door and sighed. “Let’s leave at the start of next week,” She said and everyone agreed before heading out to the lunch that had been prepared.

 

 

The week came and went and the kids had told their parents that they planned to visit Lady Tiki for something that she had Gerome doing,

Right then Maribelle and Lissa were getting ready to go to bed, Owain woke up at dawn these days and that meant that they did as well. Brady watched his mothers run around their room in the castle.

“Good night Brady! You should go to sleep soon too, the ride to the harbor will take most of tomorrow!” Lissa told him and went into her room. He called his thanks after her and told both his mothers goodnight.

It occurred to him that he might never be doing that again and he choked down a sob. He’d been ready to leave during the war, he wasn’t sure if it would have hurt the same if he had left back then instead.

“You’re not coming back are you?” Little Brady’s voice asked him quietly. Brady felt himself tense, he’d thought that his younger self was asleep.

And he’d just seen Brady nearly cry after saying goodnight to their mothers, he wondered if he could talk his way out of this.

“What do you mean? Of course I’m-” Brady started.

“Severa came over to the castle and sulked all day,” Little Brady tried to tell his story but wound up coughing a few times after he got that sentence out. “She told me about her fight with her sister, she thinks she chased her away.”

Brady let out a sigh. “That’s not what’s happening here.”

“Then you’re going to come back?” Little brady asked and the elder man kneeled down to be at eye level with his younger self.

“Can I ask you to do something for me?” He asked and the younger one looked him up and down a second before nodding yes. “Owain might come back while I’m gone. If that happens I need you to tell him that I went to see Lady Tiki,” Little Brady stared into the eyes of his older self, his older brother.

“Ma and Mom will be sad,” he finally said. The older Brady bowed his head down.

“I know,” he answered. The younger realized that continuing the conversation was pointless and moved around his elder self.

“I’ll tell Owain your message,” and with that he walked over to his room and shut the door.

Brady did the same and hoped he’d be able to pull himself together by the morning.

 

 

In the morning everyone who was leaving for Valm was gathered and saying their goodbyes to their families in the courtyard of the castle.

“Make sure … you take this … and this,” Emmeryn was dumping magic tomes and rice balls into Morgan’s bag as the girl tried to stress that she’d been prepared.

“Mother I am ready for anything at this point,” Morgan laughed as Emmeryn held out a Rexcalibur tome to her. Morgan sighed and put what must have been the third tome she’d been given in her bag. Eventually Robin walked over and threw his arms around his wife and daughter.

“This seems to be going well,” He commented looking over the bag Morgan was wearing on her shoulder.

“Morgan…” Emmeryn said. “We’re … both proud… of you,”

“Bye Morgan, hope your trip goes well,” Robin said.

“Yes, thank you Father! Mother!” Morgan said and wondered if they’d noticed the kids plan from the way they’d avoided saying see you soon.

“Oh mother!” Laurent said and suddenly reached into his bag to pull out some notes. “I wanted to give you these, so you could work on them while I’m gone.”

Miriel looked over the notes, “Can’t these wait until you’re back?” Laurent tensed.

“I know but still,” His mother didn’t seem satisfied with the response but took the notes anyway.

“Laurent, can I talk to you for a second?” Ricken asked and his son turned around.

“Yes, of course father,” He responded, and his father pulled out a tome from behind his back.

“Take this with you, it might come in handy!” His father said, and Laurent looked over the cover to see the wind magic symbol. Ricken pulled his tall son down into a hug.

“I’m sorry that I’m leaving after we just came here,” Noire apologized to Henry who let out a laugh at his daughter’s worries.

“Nya ha! Don’t worry about it Noire! This seems really important, but maybe that’s just because you’re going to a port?” Henry laughed at his own joke and that eventually led to Noire laughing as well. Noire leaned in and hugged her father.

“Thank you for everything Father,” she said, and Henry reached up to return the hug.

“If your errand takes too long then you will have to go back home on your own, understand?” Tharja tells her.

“Yes Mother,” Noire says and tries to not react to negatively when her thoughts start, ‘I’m not coming back though’.

“Make sure Minrvikins is comfortable on the boat,” Cherche told her son somewhat out of the blue. “It’s going to be hard on her getting back on one so soon.”

“Of course, Cherche,” Gerome replied. As he gave his mount her breakfast for the day.

“I’m still confused why you didn’t mention this plan Lady Tiki has you doing,” Virion said walking over to his family. Gerome straitened his back.

“I’d thought I’d already told you, so I didn’t bring it up again. Sorry,” Gerome lied, his mother sighed and his father shook his head.

“We believe you, don’t worry,” Cherche said and pulled her older son into a hug. Gerome fought back reflexively but relaxed into the hug when Virion joined in.

“Mother, Father, goodbye,” He muttered and the family pulled apart. “Minerva, we’re leaving.”

The couple watched their son retreat, “I think he’ll be fine,” Cherche said and her husband hummed in agreement.

Kjelle sighed as she shoved her bag onto the caravan they were taking, moving was hard in her armor after all. She’d volunteered to help pack, and all that was left was a bag with food.

“I can help!” Little Kjelle ran over to her elder sister holding the bag she’d been looking for. Kjelle let out a sigh.

“Absolutely not,” She said and pulled the bag out of the girl’s hands. “Why are you even out of bed?”

Little Kjelle pouted and made a grab for the bag instead of replying. Kjelle shoved it over her head to put it out of the girl’s reach, but in doing so lost her center of balance.

“She just wanted to see you off, I don’t think it’s that weird.” Kellum said from behind. Kjelle had expected to fall on her knees or back but instead she’d fallen into her father’s chest. Kellum moved to put the bag in the cart.

Sully walked over to her family and smiled, “Hope you kick some ass on your task,” She rubbed her older daughter’s hair. “And by the time you come back this one will have kicked the ass of her cold!” Sully said and suddenly turned her attention to the younger, scooping little Kjelle up in her arms.

“Yeah I’m sure you’re right,” Kjelle agreed with a soft smile.

Lissa held her son tight, Brady bent down to let his mother keep her death lock on him.

“mom, I’m going to be fine,” He muttered, trying to keep his tears under control. Lissa wasn’t even bothering to do the same. The two of them stood their sniffling to themselves, until a small dignified cough broke them up.

Brady straightened out his back and turned to see his other mom, holding Owain and little Brady’s hand.

“I believe it’s my turn with our little traveler,” Maribelle said and passed Owain to Lissa. Brady was grateful when Maribelle hugged him under his arms so that he didn’t have to bend over her to returned the hug, still trying to fight the tears down.

“Ma,” He complained when the hug was going on too long.

“Hush, just a while longer,” Maribelle scolded him. He sighed and moved to go back to hugging her.

“Hm,” Maribelle finally pulled away from her son.  “While you’re over in Valm would you mind picking me up a perfume?” Maribelle asked her eldest child.

“Uh yeah, I can do that,” Brady said and tried to ignore his younger self glaring him down.

“Nah are you sure that you have to go?” Sthal asked and gave his daughter a hug.

“Yeah I mean I didn’t get into fights when I was pregnant,” Nowi tried to reason. Nah gave a gentle laugh and took her parents hands.

“I promise I’m not going to be doing any of the fighting,” She reassured them. “I’ve wanted to talk to Lady Tiki for a while, she might know how to handle a Manakete baby,” Nah had made the lie up on the spot but now that she was thinking about it, that was probably a good idea.

“You better watch out for her Yarne,” Fredrick addressed his son.

“Of course, I will! I can do that, Probably,” Yarne muttered and Nah glared at him.

“The pride of the Warren rests on your shoulders,” Panne addressed both of them. “I hope you will return safe.”

“Th-Thank you, Mother,” Yarne stuttered out.

“We will…” Nah lied when she realized Yarne forgot to. Nah and Yarne were saved from further questioning when a whining scream shot out across the courtyard.

“Aaah, Come on Sev, People are staring,” Cynthia tried to reason with her little sister. Severa kept crying and grabbed onto her leg.

“I didn’t mean it! You can’t leave now!” Severa continued hysterically. Cynthia turned to her mothers for help. Sumia smiled sadly at the sight and Cordelia tried to hide her laugh while still holding little Cynthia.

“Come on now Severa,” Sumia said and pulled the crying girl from Cynthia’s leg. “She’ll be back before you know it.”

“No!” Severa shoved her mother’s arm away and kept clinging to Cynthia. “I don’t want you to leave!”

Cynthia sighed and picked up her little sister, something she hadn’t done recently because Severa was getting too big for it. “You don’t have to worry,” Cynthia told her and Severa threw her arms around her neck.

Sumia and Cordelia both walked over and hugged their daughters as Severa calmed down. By the end of it Sumia had taken Severa away from Cynthia.

“Have a safe trip dear, we’ll see you soon,” Cordelia told Cynthia who nodded forcefully and plastered on a smile.

Lucina checked over the caravan one more time making sure that everyone was there and that they were really ready for this. It was as she was counting the apples for the day trip to the harbor that Inigo jumped on her shoulders startling her.

“Sister!” Inigo yelled into her ear. Lucina had kept her balance through it all but play stumbled when Inigo greeted her. “Ahhh!”

“Inigo! I didn’t see you coming,” Lucina said and threw a hand to her back to support her brother. The rest of their family came over while Inigo climbed down from her shoulders.

Olivia barely gave her eldest daughter time to breathe before pulling her into a hug. “Be safe on your travels okay?” She said and Lucina returned the hug before pulling away.

“Lucina,” Chrom started and placed a hand on her shoulder. “You don’t need to worry about finding a cure for the children you know?”

Lucina panicked for a second and wondered if she could deny it in some fashion. “Oh, it’s not-”

“Just focus on what lady Tiki wants from you, and come back safe, there’s half a chance it will have already passed by then,” Her father smiled at her and Lucina felt her own waver.

“Of course Father,” She said.

“Safe travels Lucina,” Chrom said and pulled her into a hug.

“Thank you,” Lucina muttered and felt the rest of her family join in, Olivia on her side and her little siblings on her legs.

 

 

The ten kids had piled into the caravan and watched as the city of Ylisstol retreated under the horizon. Lucina leaned out the back and watched until she couldn’t see anything anymore. She knew she wasn’t the only one watching, no one had been saying anything after all.

The noon sun shone down and Ylisstol had been out of view for at least half an hour when Lucina felt a hand on her shoulder. She sat up to be greeted by Kjelle giving her a soft smile.

“Don’t worry, this is … It’s the right choice,” Kjelle said. Everyone shifted quietly not wanting to say anything. Just because it was the right choice didn’t mean it wasn’t hard.

“You’re right, but we’re not out of the woods yet. We still need to get Lady Tiki to agree to help us,” Lucina smiled and the group agreed with her.

With her friends at her side Lucina knew that they would make it through what was to come.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "They're not coming back are they?" Chrom asked Robin.  
> "I'd, be surprised if they were, unfortunately," Robin replied glumly.
> 
> Thanks for reading sorry it got so sad :')


	3. Outset pt. 2

Cynthia had taken off on her pegasus the second that the boat had docked in Valm harbor. Gerome shepherded Minerva off the boat in a calmer manor as the rest of the shepherds gathered around Lucina.

“It will be another day of hiking until we’re to reach the Mila tree, we should rest in town while we can,” Lucina told the group and they all sighed. The journey was starting to take its toll on them.

“I promise we’ll be ready to march in time,” Laurent told her and then started leading her to the town. “Perhaps you should get some food in the meantime.”

Kjelle followed the two of them as they split off from the group and the rest were quick to disperse in small groups.

“Hey Brady! Where are you going?” Morgan trailed after her elder cousin. He sighed and turned around to wait for her to catch up.

“I promised Ma’ I’d get her perfume on the way back but,” He said and let his shoulders slump further than they did normally. “I was thinking I could mail her some.”

Morgan merely hummed in agreement, what they were going to do was hard to think about. “Hey Brady?” she said again.

“What?” he asked annoyed by her onslaught of questions.

“What’s your future like? You know cus’ I’ve likely never been there,” She asked. While the group never had any concrete proof that Morgan wasn’t from the same world as them it was easy to assume because of her mother. Though, Brady thought that if they’d pronounced Emmeryn wrongfully dead in this world there’s no reason the same thing didn’t happen in theirs.

“Well, your Ma’ kicked the bucket about a month before the Mad King tried to execute her in this time,” He started. Morgan listened intently as he told her about the world he grew up in. It was weird thinking about the place as anything but a wasteland after so long in the present. The two looked for perfume as they kept talking.

 

 

The sun went and came and soon they were hiking along the roads that the people of Valm had built after the war. Lucina had sent Gerome and Cynthia ahead of the group to request the audience, so she hadn’t been expecting them back so quickly. But none the less she noticed the unique silhouettes of a Wyvern and pegasus descend on their group.

Cynthia landed her pegasus ahead of the group and the animal was happy enough to walk along the road like a normal horse. While Gerome dismounted and walked over to the rest of the group with Minerva at his side.

“Lady Tiki is willing and able to meet us, we’ll be expected up the Mila tree,” Gerome informed Lucina.

“Right then, thank you Gerome,” Lucina praised him and she swore she almost saw the man crack a smile before falling in line with the rest of their group.

“We’re only about an hour away, so that means we’re making good time, right?” Morgan said to the group to improve morale.

“Lady Say’ri said that she’d wait for us at the bottom of the Mila tree,” Cynthia threw into the conversation.

“Yes, well then we’d better not keep her waiting,” Kjelle said and pushed to the front of the group.

With little more complaint the group made it to the base of the Mila tree, after the time they spent marveling at the beauty of the tree the group moved to meet Say’ri, who was exactly where Cynthia said she’d be.

“Prey you all made the journey from Ylisse safely Milady?” Say’ri greeted Lucina and held out her hand.

“Yes, we did. And thank you for meeting with us on such short notice,” Lucina replied and they started climbing the stairs to the shrine. “We have something important to discuss with Lady Tiki.”

“Yes, Gerome and Cynthia informed us, though they won’t say anything beyond that, am I wrong in assuming you’re the same?” Say’ri said and Lucina stiffened her shoulders when Say’ri sounded annoyed with them.

“No, you’re not. We’ll have to discuss those details when the conversation proper begins.”

“Aye, let’s keep going in that case,” Say’ri said and turned her attention to the almost never-ending staircase.

At the top they were greeted by the sight of Lady Tiki praying on her alter, no one seemed to want to be the one to wake her. Eventually she opened her eyes and greeted the group with a warm smile. “It’s good to see you all again,”

“Likewise, we’re glad you could meet with us,” Lucina said. Tiki’s smile faltered as she over looked the group.

“this will not be a happy meeting I presume?” She asked as Say’ri moved to her side.

“No it isn’t,” Nah answered. The children had always thought Nah was close with Tiki, with them both being Manakete. “Our younger selves have been getting sick,” Nah tried to explain.

“Children get sick, it’s the way the world is,” Say’ri replied. There was some shuffling in the group as they tried to figure out how to explain that the problem was deeper than that.

“That is true, and it’s why we didn’t think much of it at first,” Lucina jumped in to save Nah. “However, there does not seem to be a natural cause for the sickness, and Noire and Gerome are affected despite not living in the same city as the rest of them.”

“And the children versions of Severa Inigo and Owain are doing well, we think it’s because the elder ones are gone,” Cynthia said suddenly. Tiki’s eyes lit up with recognition and then sighed.

“Ah, so that’s what this is about,” Tiki said and shifted to be more attentive to the conversation. “You’ve  already have a theory on the cause of the sickness, I take it you have a theory on how to fix it as well?”

“Well,” Lucina stuttered. She had known that Tiki was closest with their parents, she hadn’t expected her to be quite so upset at their asking to go back to their time. “We first wanted to know your opinion on the matter. Is it possible that our presence is, actively hurting our younger selves?”   

“Hmm,” Tiki hummed and closed her eyes. Say’ri sighed and sat down next to her. they all stayed there, no one finding it in them to move. “I don’t think there is anything wrong in your assumptions.” Tiki said and the kids all felt dread wash over them. “I’d say that the time line is trying to correct itself.”

“C-correct?” Noire muttered as she cowered behind Cynthia.

“Yes, there’s not meant to be two princesses of Ylisse, the time line is trying to account for that by getting rid of the weaker one, the younger one. If I had to guess, there’s little chance that putting distance between you and your younger selves would help either. For they still have the ability to grow up and follow your path.”

The kids all thought about the information they’d been given. Nothing in it surprised any of them, but they’d being lying if they’d said there was an unspoken hope that Tiki could fix their problem.

“Then,” Kjelle started as she flashed back to what she’d said when they’d first discussed this possibility _‘We can’t just go and die!’._ “We wanted to know if it’s possible for us to go back to the future we came from.”

“Go back?” Say’ri asked startled. “Gods no! Chrom and the others would never allow that!”

“It’s a good thing my father isn’t here then,” Lucina replied and Say’ri’s face flashed with understanding.

Laurent pushed to the front of the group, “We need to know specifically if you can guarantee that Morgan will come to the same future as the rest of us,” the young Mage shifted awkwardly, she wasn’t sure what she’d do if the answer was no.

Tiki didn’t reply for a long few seconds, and that only caused the group’s anxiety to rise. Her next action didn’t help with that as she signaled Say’ri to bend down and whispered something in the other’s ear.

Say’ri exited and Morgan swore she felt her heart drop to the bottom of her stomach.

“The answer to your questions is that I have no ability to guarantee where or when Morgan, or any of you for that matter, will land,” Tiki said and the group fell silent. “It was hard enough for Naga to place you all within half a decade of each other.”

Laurent tensed when he felt all his friend’s eyes fall on him, he still had nightmares about being alone in that desert. The idea that something similar would happen again made him nauseous.

“We ain’t doing anything that’s gonna split us up,” Brady said and stood in front of his little cousin. Tiki met his anger with her calm eyes.

“Is that resolve enough that you would abandon the future for good?” She asked to the group at large. “You should know, it’s not the wasteland you left behind.”

“What?” Lucina asked and leaned forward. The future they’d left had been completely desolate, that’s why Naga used her power to send the children to the past.

“Another world’s god brought prosperity back to the lands, and even built graves to those who died fighting Grima,” Tiki informed them. In that moment, Say’ri walked back into the room holding a pile of parchment and a well of ink.

“Why would they do that?” Yarne asked.

“I have not that answer,” Tiki replied. Say’ri looked to her in confusion, but the group was busy trying to process what they’d been told to notice.

“What should we do?” Noire asked. They couldn’t stay, that much was clear if they wanted their younger selves to get better.

“I think, we should try to go back to the future, definitely,” Morgan said, she’d feel bad if the others couldn’t go home all for her sake.

“I’m absolutely against that,” Laurent told her. It didn’t take a genius to figure out why.

“I’m with Laurent, there are too many things that could go wrong,” Brady said with a huff.

“I’d like to see my mothers’ graves if it was possible though,” Cynthia commented.

Nah looked at the group that seemed to have hit a deadlock, no one else wanting to state whether they leaned in one direction or the other. They both had their drawbacks and learning that their future was prosperous had not made the decision easier. “Tiki, do you know of any other ways to solve this?” She asked, they weren’t going to be able to make a decision like this.

“There is somewhere else that I know of,” Tiki said. “You could go to a neighboring realm. One that’s recently finished fighting a large war, I think they’d benefit from having your experience with rebuilding.”

“Neighboring realm?” Morgan asked. “How do we get there?”

“And would going there solve our problem?” Laurent asked, there would be no point in any of what they were doing if that wasn’t the case.

“Yes, I believe that going there will take you out of competition with your younger selves, and as for how, I have the spell to do the trick, it was taught to me by a friend from that realm,” Tiki stated.

“A friend?” Nah asked.

“Yes, he was a dragon that lived in that realm,” Tiki explained. “He wasn’t a Manakete but I still found myself thinking of him as a mentor for the times we talked. He was the one who restored your timeline, he’d come to this realm looking for people to help fight the war in his.”

“I take it …” Lucina couldn’t find it in herself to finish her sentence.

“The man I knew was a fragment, he’d been controlled by his rage. He told me not to look for answers if he died,” Tiki said sadly. “One day he stopped coming, and I stopped going.”

“Forgive me Lady Tiki,” Gerome cut into the conversation that was happening. “But you seem to be partial to us going to this god’s realm. Is there a reason?”

Tiki gave a sad smile and sighed. “You’re as sharp as ever Gerome, yes there is. I fear I am too weak to send you all back to the future, and having never attempted the spell, I might send you further into the past by mistake. However, if you go to this realm, I can guarantee where you will land to be a safe place.”

“That uh, kind of removes the future as an option doesn’t it?” Yarne asked from his wife’s side.

“You only told us about our future to make us care about this other realm huh?” Nah asked the elder Manakete teasingly.

“Of course not, I thought it would put your minds at ease as well,” Tiki replied.

“Then I believe this is the decision we were looking for,” Lucina turned to her group looking for anyone who didn’t seem resolved. She found nine faces all with the same determination that she had on hers.

“We have one more request from you Milady,” Say’ri walked over to Lucina and handed her the pile of paper, giving the ink and quills to Laurent next to her. The idea behind it was obvious. “You need to explain your situation to your families, we will insure that the letters make it to them safely.”

Lucina looked down at the blank parchment, suddenly flashing back to the night she’d read Inigo’s letter. They were really doing this.

“Lucina?” Tiki asked. “You don’t need to do this you know? There could be another way to fix this problem.”

Lucina turned back to her friends, Cynthia had walked over and put her hand on Lucina’s arm. “We can’t depend on possibilities, we weren’t meant to stay here in the first place,” Lucina eventually replied.

Tiki didn’t reply but she nodded to Lucina’s comment. “We’ll meet at the base of the Mila tree this evening, I will not send you off unless every single one of you has written a letter to your parents.”

“Yes, thank you for this Tiki, Say’ri,” Lucina bowed to the two women. Tiki bowed back and Say’ri huffed.

 

 

The sunset dyed the sky orange and the clouds pink, the light changed the color of the Mila tree as well. The cool greens and blues were warm browns now. Lucina walked forward holding a satchel of letters in her left hand.

Tiki and Say’ri stood at the base of the steps, both were somber.

“Here are the letters, please take care with them,” Lucina handed the satchel to Say’ri.

“Of course, Milady,” Say’ri bowed and took the letters, it was thicker than she expected and when she counted there were fifteen letters where they’d requested ten.

“Some of us felt we owed our siblings and younger selves their own explanations,” Lucina explained. She’d been the first to write to her younger self, having suddenly wished she’d explained more to little Lucina.

“Aye,” Say’ri said, sated by the explanation.

“I’ll ask you all again, are you sure of this decision?” Tiki said in an assertive voice that the children were not used to hearing out of the calm woman.

The children all nodded and Tiki gave a final sigh. “Then I wish you all safe travels,”

As Tiki spoke the Mila tree started to glow under the children’s feet. Lucina felt her body growing light and the last thing she heard before being engulfed in light was Tiki’s calm voice.

“Thank you for all you’ve done, young shepherds.”

 

 

The children were gone, that much was clear. Say’ri had been blinded by the light that had taken them and needed a second to recover. Tiki stood still when Say’ri looked, however Say’ri knew what was coming and moved to catch the dragon before she fell over.

Tiki must have been expecting that because the second she hit Say’ri’s arms she let out a faint laugh. “The deeds been done, Say’ri.”

“Aye, you must rest Milady,” she said and lifted Tiki off the ground.

“Milady?” Say’ri asked after a moment of silence.

“Hmm?” Tiki asked, fighting falling asleep in the woman’s grasp.

“The world they went to, was the same right? Why did we withhold that information?”

“Anankos- He told me that he couldn’t guarantee the safety of anyone from this world who went to help him,” Tiki replied. For all she’d told Say’ri this was something she’d kept to herself until then. “If those three are alive, I have no doubt the two groups will find each other.

“And if they aren’t, then Lucina and the others won’t have to deal with losing them twice.”    

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! :D  
> you can talk to me on twitter at @HazelCharry345 if you wanna, I'm lonely


	4. Alliance

The late morning sky of Hoshido was the brightest blue anywhere in the world. Artists would struggle to make paints that could capture it’s vibrance, and that’s what made it one of the country’s best selling points. The few clouds that dotted the sky were an equally bright white, nothing like the grey smog that plagued Nohr.

Selena watched the sky knights play their game of capture the rings. Laslow had begged her to partake on Nohr’s side, but the girl had made it clear her opinion on being here. Looking up she found Laslow clutching both ends of his lance, so the Hoshiden team couldn’t take the last ring from him. She let out a yawn, Laslow was so good at playing defense this would take a while.

“This game was supposed to help with Nohr’s image problem!” She heard Ryoma yell, he and Xander were sitting next to each other. Selena, along with a few other Hoshiden and Nohrian retainers had been tasked with guarding them. “Right now, it looks like the whole of Nohr can only produce _one_ sky knight!”

“We had three at the start!” Xander yelled back. Selena laughed to herself, the image of Arthur falling off the mount nearly the second it had taken off was still funny to her. It was a shame though because it seemed the animal hadn’t rejected him, it was just his luck.

Elise hadn’t been able to say the same, she’d managed to save her retainer’s ring but her pegasus had booted her off soon after. She’d gotten up right after hitting the ground to chase after the animal.

Selena wondered how that was going, turning her head she saw the youngest princess running around being followed by the Hoshiden sky knight Reina, who’d been helping the Nohrians with their pegasi.

Turning her head back to the sky, Hinoka and Subaki dived at Laslow in sync, while their daughter hovered above him trying to cut off his escape route. Selena cringed, Laslow would have been dead if they’d pulled that on a real battle field.

But he was fine in the end, he’d made his Pegasus dive to the ground barely recovering before they hit it. And Selena could hear Ryoma and Xander were still arguing about if this was helping at all. _Okay_ , Selena thought, _I can put my pride aside long enough to save this mess._

“I’m going to go for a bit,” she said to Peri who turned around with a hum.

“Alrighty! Send Beruka this way though, she’s not being any help over there!” Peri said and pointed to Selena’s retainer partner who was currently in a stare-down with Arthur’s pegasus. Selena had been wondering where Beruka was but…

“Beruka was our back-up rider? Why?” Selena asked surprised. Who in their right mind had thought the assassin would be able to mount those picky beasts?

“Camilla has always been fond of Beruka, I’m sure you can understand,” Xander called over to Selena. Peri jumped, suddenly remembering what she was doing and turned back to watching him and the Hoshiden King. _Okay, so that made sense_ Selena thought.

Laslow made a panicked cry as Caeldori let out a grunt, he must have dodged another attack.

Selena walked over to her friend and tapped her on the back, she noted that the Pegasus hadn’t even let Beruka in arm’s length of it. “Hey tag out okay? You can go watch Lord Xander.”

“I have this under-” before Beruka could finish her sentence Selena had mounted and taken off. Beruka gave a small pout before walking to her king.

As much as Selena claimed to hate Pegasus riding there was always a thrill in taking off, and it made her wonder if it truly had something to do with her lineage. She felt a calm focus as she noticed Subaki getting ready to pass a ring to his daughter. She readied her lance and caught it mid pass, thanks to the momentum from takeoff.

“Ahh!” Caeldori made a surprised noise, she hadn’t seen Selena approaching. That was a mistake that Selena knew Cordelia would never make and seeing any differences between her mom and the Hoshiden princess put Selena’s mind at ease.

“Selena!” Laslow yelled happily, glad he wasn’t the only player on Nohr’s side anymore.

“This is where the real game starts!” Hinoka said, Selena didn’t like the implication Hinoka could tell she was experienced in Pegasus riding. Selena noticed that Hinoka had the other four rings on her lance, Subaki and Caeldori must have been trying to get all of them to her.

They circled each other for a second, the other game participants looking on waiting to see the next move.

Hinoka mirrored every move that Selena made and that gave Selena an idea. She tapped her heels to her pegasus to mask what she was getting ready to do.

Hinoka circled around her and she followed the movement, deciding now was the best time to do what she was planning on.

Selena stood up and jumped off the saddle, all she could feel was the rush of wind on her skin as she aimed her lance down into the rings on Hinoka’s. The princess was forced to yield since Selena had gravity on her side.

Her pegasus had dived after her and Selena reached for the reins right before both of them hit the ground. The crowd that had gathered around the competition area let out a collective cheer. She wasn’t sure if it was because Nohr had won, since Laslow flew over and dropped the single ring he’d been holding onto her lance or if they were just cheering that she hadn’t died after attempting that.

She saw the rest of the competitors land, and she had been a little too distracted by watching Laslow crash to the ground that she didn’t see the reason she didn’t enjoy trips to Hoshido fast approaching.

“That was so cool! How did you know that your pegasus would catch you? Can you teach me how to ride like that?” Caeldori crowded her and Selena shot a panicked look to Hinoka. She knew that Camilla had explained Selena’s dislike for her daughter to her at some point during the war.

“Hey kiddo, that’s enough. Let’s give Miss Selena some space,” Hinoka chided her daughter as Selena gave her a grateful look.

“Mighty warrior of the wind!” A voice boomed out and Selena turned back to greet Odin. “It appears that the skies of Hoshido were not ready for the blazing bloodline that courses in you!” He threw his arms around her shoulders and she hugged back. Not without stepping on his foot and hissing at him to shut up about her bloodline, but she did hug back.

Odin pulled back as Laslow walked over aided by Subaki. “He seems to not quite have found his land legs yet,” Subaki said and passed Laslow to Odin.

“I’m never doing that again…” He muttered and Selena let out a laugh.

“You and me both,” She replied.

“That’s a shame, you’re both talented riders,” Subaki said and turned to find his family.

“Congratulations on winning, here’s a gift from Castle Shirasagi,” A voice called out over the conversation and the three friends turned to face Ryoma walking over with Elise and Arthur walking up behind him. Sans Elise’s pegasus, Selena noted.

Ryoma held out a small bag to Selena who accepted it with a bow, as she and the other Nohrians had practiced the other day. She opened the bag and was greeted with the sight of small pastel orbs that sort of looked like stars.

“Ah! Konpeito!” Caeldori said looking over Selena’s shoulder. Selena hadn’t noticed the girl getting close again.

“Oh! They’re so pretty!” Elise said on Selena’s other side.

“They’re sugar candies! They taste great!” Caeldori told Elise.

“Here, why don’t you hold them Milady,” Selena said and passed the bag to Elise. Arthur and Laslow had walked over too, to inspect the prize.

“Thank you all for that wonderful show,” lord Ryoma said again when he had the fliers’ attention. “Now then, let’s get back to enjoying the festival.”

Selena nodded contently, taking the konpeito when Caeldori shoved them into her hands saying that pink was her favorite flavor.

She walked around the festival watching the people she knew run around and have fun. Hinata was dragging Odin off in some direction and Selena didn’t want to know how that was going to end. At least one of them was enjoying their forced vacation.

Walking a bit further, her eyes fell on Oboro and Beruka talking at a table. She’d always wondered how those two got so close, especially because they always seemed tense when they talked to each other.

She sighed and tossed one of the candies into her mouth. It tasted like it was nothing but sugar and Selena wondered how Caeldori was able to pick up on any flavors to prefer this color over others. She sat down on a bench under a cherry tree that still had some of its flowers on it. Chewing on the sugar, she thought it would be nice to come see Hoshido when the trees were in full bloom.

Selena tossed another one of the candies into her mouth as Laslow walked over. “Hey mind if I sit here?” He said with a wink, Selena just rolled her eyes.

“You’ll have more luck with like, anyone else,” She told him, but he sat down next to her anyway.

“This place is quite nostalgic don’t you think?” Laslow asked her as he picked a lose cherry petal out of his hair.

“No? What do you mean,” Selena replied. This place was unlike anywhere else she’d been, nostalgic was the last word she’d use to describe it.

“I meant, the festival! It reminded me of the time the shepherds walked into that Harvest Festival in the outrealms, this festival has the same feeling to it,” Laslow let out a laugh.

Selena tensed up at that, it had been so long since she’d thought of anything they’d done as shepherds.

“You know? Like over there, someone warned me not to walk into a mud puddle and all I could think of was Cynthia slipping and knocking Lucina and Kjelle over with her! Or when I was listening to Hana yell at Azama I thought Morgan might try to stick Noire on him after he said something to annoy her,” Laslow kept talking as Selena’s hand was clenching so tight she thought she might crush the rest of the candy in it.

“Why are you doing this?” She asked when Laslow took a breath.

“Doing what?”

“Don’t play dumb,” She sneered. “We’re going to stay here, you don’t need to keep reminding me of what we left!”

Laslow looked at her as his smile faltered, but it held strong on his face. “I think I do honestly,” He told her. “We might not ever go back but the least we can do is remember what we left.”

Selena was fuming with anger, but she knew better than to direct it at Laslow. Quietly she muttered, “Doesn’t mean we have to talk about it though, it makes it hurt more.”

Laslow gave her a sad look and it made her want to hide from the world. She hated showing people her weakness, even her closest friends.

“Selena,” Laslow said and looked at her sadly. The sound of leaves crunching alerted both of them to the presence of their other friend. Odin walked over without the usual dramatics he had about him, having figured out what they were talking about already.

“Maybe it’s just my opinion but, I’d say it’s more than the least we can do,” Odin said and looked between the two of them. “I’d say it’s our duty to work to remember those we’ve left behind.”

“That’s what I was trying to say, thanks Odin,” Laslow agreed.

Selena thought she’d been calming down, but Odin’s comments sent a new rage through her. It felt like they were ignoring her opinion on the matter.

“You two just aren’t listening to me!” she snapped, louder than she had intended too. The three of them froze as every face in eye sight turned to them in confusion.

Selena locked her jaw and waited for someone else to say something, though she knew everyone was waiting for her to make the first move seeing as she was the one that yelled. After a very long pause Hinata walked up to the group of friends.

“Hey, uh, they’re serving lunch in Fort Jinya soon, if you guys, uhh want to come,” He trailed off and the look on his face screamed that he didn’t want to be dragged into the fight.

“Right! We’ll be there, thank you my friend!” Odin said and dismissed him. Hinata nodded and started walking off to the fort.

Laslow reached out to Selena as she stood up, pointedly ignoring his hand, “Let’s get going then, we shouldn’t keep the royalty waiting,” She said and glared at her two friends, as if daring them to start the fight up again. Odin and Laslow sighed and followed after her and Hinata.

 

 

Laslow had been seated on the left side of Xander with Peri off to the right. It made sense to him, but it still split him up from Selena and Odin, not that he really minded, but he still felt bad leaving the conversation on such a sour note.

“I heard you got in a fight with Selena in the courtyard,” Xander leaned over and told Laslow who tensed up. Rumors spread fast it seemed.

“It wasn’t a fight,” Laslow dodged.

“It sounded like one,” Peri leaned over into their conversation.

“Trust me, it’s nothing to worry about,” Laslow pushed. It wasn’t like his relationship with Selena was any of their business anyway. “We will be on our best behavior from here on out.”

Laslow’s promise seemed to put Xander’s mind at ease, as he dropped the line of questioning. Laslow honestly couldn’t be more grateful, he’d apologize to Selena before dinner after she’d cooled down.

“You know, I’ve always been curious about you three,” Azama had sat down among the Nohrians for lunch and he leaned into Laslow’s personal space. Laslow tried not to cringe at Azama’s singling him and his friends out.

“I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying,” Laslow dodged and looked down at his hands.

“It’s just, at first I wrote you all off as just weird Nohrians, but now it seems you give off different airs than the rest of your companions, like you were raised somewhere else!” Azama had hit the nail on the head and Laslow felt his anxiety raise, if Azama had figured it out who else had?

Laslow had frozen at Azama’s words scared to react in any way, sure that it would just confirm what was being said.

“You’re barking up the wrong tree,” A voice cut through and Laslow looked up to see Selena leaning over the table and glaring Azama down. “If you want some kind of tall tale you’ll have more luck talking with Odin.”

Azama seemed to take the statement as an invitation to go bug Odin, who was currently in a discussion with Hinata about some magic the two had made up. He got up to go sit near those two and Selena walked around the table to sit down in his place next to Laslow.

“Thanks for that,” Laslow muttered, “I thought I was about to mess up.”

Selena turned away from her friend. “I just wanted him gone, I can’t look at him without thinking about _her_ now.”

Laslow let out an awkward laugh at that. He hadn’t meant to associate Noire with Azama but now that Selena pointed it out again, the image was potent. When Laslow looked back to Xander the other simply raised his eyebrow as to prompt Laslow to do something, probably to apologize to Selena. But Laslow knew that it was a bad idea to restart that conversation at the lunch table. Right then Odin let out a loud yell at whatever Azama had said to him.

 

 

After lunch Xander had dismissed Peri and Laslow to have the afternoon to themselves while he and Ryoma stayed behind in the fort. It was as Laslow left the fort to head back into town that he met up with Odin.

“You okay? Did you manage to shake off Azama?” Laslow asked as he approached his friend.

“Ah Laslow!” Odin exclaimed. “Have no fear of the mighty shaman, I’ve avoided his curiosity for now!”

“Well that’s good, try to keep your voice down in that case,” Laslow laughed with his friend.

“it’s no matter! Odin Dark can out smart anyone,” Odin boasted, at that point the two of them heard footsteps approach them from behind. Turning around they found their third friend.

“What are you staring at?” Selena snapped when neither of them said anything.

“Oh sorry,” Laslow replied. He’d been assuming that she’d wanted to say something.

“No, it’s,” Selena started and then stopped, seemingly stumbling over her own words. “I’m sorry okay? For this morning.”

“It’s already forgotten!” Odin proclaimed happily and threw his arm around Selena’s shoulders.

“Well it shouldn’t be,” Selena replied. “You two were right, I guess I was just feeling, y’know? Homesick.”

“That’s understandable,” Laslow said. He’d started the whole thing because he’d been feeling homesick himself. Selena smirked at her two friends, glad they had accepted her apology.

“Well I feel better now that that’s off my chest!” She announced and stepped ahead of the other two. “Now I’m going to get back to doing important work!”

“Important?” Laslow asked almost scared.

Selena’s smirk broke out into a full-on grin. “Lady Camilla asked me to get her a good souvenir! I need to find something perfect!”

“And I suppose you plan on buying out the festival in the process?” Laslow asked.

“Well Effie and Charlotte need souvenirs too, as well as Felicia and Flora and all the kids,”

“The stalls will be barren come night fall,” Odin muttered and followed after his friends. “But it does not matter as long as I have my two bright pegasus knights at my side.”

Selena scoffed at that statement. Laslow cocked his head, “What do you mean bright? You normally talk about us in terms of colors, don’t you?”

“Huh?” Odin replied.

“Yeah, he’s right,” Selena joined in, “He’s normally azure and I’m something like scarlet.”

“Ah! No it’s just,” Odin started. “There was a giant flash of light when Selena first went into the air. Did neither of you see it?”

Selena and Laslow stared at each other for a second. “I was too focused on getting the ring from Subaki,” Selena admitted. “I might have noticed some light, but I thought it was just glints from metal…”

“And I uhh, I was having trouble keeping my eyes open to be honest. I could have easily missed something like that,” Laslow stated.

 The two statements left Odin thinking, he’d thought the light had been near impossible to ignore.

“Well anyway,” Selena called and ran a few steps ahead to a booth. “Do you think Niles would like this one?” She asked and picked up a small cat ceramic.

“Selena, you don’t like Niles,” Laslow reasoned, knowing where this was going.

“It’s not for me to give him, it’s for Odin,” She said and Odin felt his face flush. Selena loved teasing him about his crush.

“I have no need for such gifts!” He said rushed and Selena rolled her eyes.

“Okay what about this for Lord Leo then?” She said and picked up something from the next booth. When Odin refused the next trinket too, Selena agreed saying that a royal would need something extra special. Odin made a squawking sound before chasing Selena to stop her from buying whatever she deemed suitable for Leo.

“You guys, People are going to think we’re fighting again,” Laslow said to his friends who didn’t seem to hear him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See? Everyone's doing great! idk what Tiki was worried about! :P
> 
> Add me in Heroes if you need to fill out your friends list :D My ID is 6718040995 <3


	5. Improvisation

The floating sensation that had surrounded Lucina and her friends was quickly replaced with one of falling. The wind was whipping around, and Cynthia and Gerome were the first to realize what was happening. Cynthia kicked her heals into her pegasus’s back and sent the two of them into free fall, reaching out and grabbing her closest friend who turned out to be Kjelle. Gerome followed suit grabbing onto Brady and continuing the free fall.

Yarne had been holding onto Nah from before Tiki had sent them to the new world. So, when Nah processed that they were falling she grabbed onto her husband and prayed that her dragon stone would work without directly touching it. An intense light filled the sky and Nah’s small frame was quickly replaced with that of a dragon as she slowed their descent.

Laurent and Morgan were hit with the same idea at once, and while it took Morgan a little longer to get her tome out the two of them managed to grab their nearest friends and break their falls with their wind tomes. Noire Held onto Morgan’s shoulder for dear life, while Lucina and Laurent were only holding hands due to being further away.

They all hit the ground with relative levels of success, Morgan and Noire having a particularly hard landing.

“Oh thank the gods, Mother I will never forget your kindness,” Morgan muttered as she rolled onto her back and held her half spent wind tome to her chest. Brady ran over to the two of them to check for any injuries, while Lucina started a head count the second she recovered from her own fall.

“All present?” Laurent asked her as he dusted off his clothes.

“Seven, eight, nine…” Lucina had started recounting in a panicked manner.

“And you Lucy,” Cynthia said to her friend. Lucina blushed a bit, but she stopped pointing her finger at her friends.

“Nah, you’re not supposed to be transforming,” Kjelle said to the dragon as she changed back.

“I’m pretty sure falling to my death would be worse for the child health-wise than a single transformation,” Nah replied exasperated.

“So, where are we?” Noire asked as Brady helped her off the ground having judged that the two girls had not broken anything.

“The grass seems too well kept for this to be a forest,” Laurent commented. The field they’d fallen in was a vibrant and uniform green, surrounded by an even line of trees. Someone tended to these fields.

“Yeah we’re in a park,” Gerome added, watching the people on the peripheries of the clearing staring at them, whispering, they must have seen Nah transform.

“Oh hey look! Pegasus knights!” Morgan said and pointed to the sky. In the bright blue sky there were five pegasus knights that appeared to be playing a game. The group had looked up just in time to see the knight with bright red pigtails jump off her pegasus at another one.

“Woah! That’s so cool!” Cynthia said as the group heard small rumblings of a crowd cheering.

“If pegasus knights are common around here, you’ll fit right in,” Noire said.

“I uh, hope she made it to the ground okay,” Yarne muttered, still not completely recovered from their own descent.

“We need to get moving,” Gerome said forcefully as the group of bystanders he’d been watching started to leave.     

 “I agree,” Laurent said and the group turned their attention to the two of them. “It would serve us well to camp in the woods a few days to get our bearings.”

Laurent started to lead the group into the direction of the trees, only to find it was a single line of trees next to a busy road.

“Well, this isn’t a forest,” Morgan said sarcastically. Some of the passersby gave them a side glance before continuing to walk to the town.

“Well, I suppose we should go … this way!” Lucina said and pointed down the road that led away from the town, the area surrounding was nothing but grassland.

“Is that really such a good idea?” Yarne asked her and looked down the road looking for some kind of ending, not finding anything.

“We don’t have any money for this world. So, we’ll just have to live off the land for a while, just like we did when we went to the past!” Lucina explained and started walking down the road. A passing group stared at them a little longer than the rest at that.

“Hey maybe don’t go blurting those things out like that!” Brady chastised his cousin.

“Well for all we know time travel is common in this world,” Kjelle commented.

“I doubt that,” Laurent interjected Kjelle’s train of thought. “It costs enough energy that I’d fear a realm where it was common place.”

“I mean, this place doesn’t seem lacking in energy,” Yarne said and stared at the plants along the road. He hadn’t seen a single wilted leaf yet. “Or maybe we’re just in a really affluent place, and they’re going to kill us for trespassing,” Nah wordlessly put her hand on Yarne’s back to calm him down before he started panicking too much.

“What we need to do is focus on information gathering, because you know, we do need it,” Noire stated.

“Oh! Oh! We could go into town and fan out to gather more information,” Morgan suggested happily.

“Yeah! We could even make it a mission code name! Mission Basic info!” Cynthia cheered, guiding her pegasus down the road.

“Stop talking about not knowing anything either!” Brady cut the conversation off, drawing more attention to them than the actual conversation had.

“I think we just need to keep our voices down,” Nah said as the group kept moving. Gerome made a grunt to agree with his friend.

The group moved along the road in relative silence after that, it was only when they noticed that there were fewer groups coming down the road that they started talking again.

“Those three ahead look armed,” Gerome said and signaled Minerva to the side of the group. He’d pointed down the road where three men sat with swords on their hips.

“Don’t do anything Gerome, they’re probably just a road patrol,” Lucina said and Gerome grumbled but fell back into line.

As Lucina had predicted, one of the guards got up and walked over to their group, “Good day travelers,”

“Well met,” Lucina said and stepped in front of Gerome and Minerva to keep them under control for as long as possible.

“It’s a beautiful day today huh?” The guard asked friendly enough. “Well I’ll just have to look at your caravan and this’ll be over.”

“Caravan?” Noire asked quietly. The guard furrowed his brow. “You all have a caravan, right? You’d never make it to the next town without the supplies. Where are you all planning on going anyway?”

“Uhm,” Lucina stuttered, not sure of what to say.

“Why do we have to tell ya’ anything?” Brady said and pushed in front of his cousin. Gerome followed to the front, ready to move on to intimidation.  

“Woah hey!” the guard yelped when the two of them and the wyvern got into his space. “I don’t want trouble, with the king around we’re just keeping track of who’s coming and going!”

“King huh?” Kjelle said and turned back to the town, so the security was higher than normal because of that, this was just bad luck it seemed.

“Well,” The guard said as he took a step back from Gerome and Brady, “Everyone needs to acquire a Visa before entering Hoshido, just show us the papers from your last border crossing and this will be over.”

Morgan turned around and started digging in one of her tomes, which probably didn’t look great to the guard, and his friends who’d come to check what was happening when their friend had yelled. She didn’t know any spells that could forge papers and she doubted that Laurent did either, maybe if they had a dark mage with them…

“Uhh, okay forget the crossing papers, do you have any IDs on you?” The guard asked with his friends at his side. He got a little more annoyed at the silence. “Any of you?”

“I think we’re going to need to go to the border patrol station to sort this out,” One of the other guards said and glared at the group. He had heard Morgan mutter something about forging.

“That’s not going to-” Gerome started but got cut off.

“We’ll gladly go,” Lucina said and threw her arm in front of Gerome’s axe. The three guards looked nervously at the group that was three times bigger than them.

“Alright, our caravan is over here,” The group was lead to the caravan and put their weapons and bags into a pile in the middle of the cart. It was a tight squeeze but they all fit, and the horses didn’t seem to have trouble pulling the cart along. Cynthia’s pegasus and Minerva followed along on either side of the cart.

 

 

The tension was high while the sun creeped up overhead, making the time midday. But to the group it felt like the middle of the night, which made them all less willing to talk. Cynthia was struggling to keep her eyes open, Noire had to keep pinching her when she fell asleep.

Nah turned to Gerome who had been silent the whole ride and kicked him.

“What?” He asked her annoyed.

“Just checking you weren’t asleep.” She said.

“I don’t sleep.”

“Apparently,” Nah snarked and turned away.

Laurent shifted to whisper something into Lucina’s ear, “The grass lands will make it harder to escape.”

“There are only three of us you know,” the guard cut in, Laurent hadn’t been whispering quietly enough apparently. “your group could overpower us at any point, which makes me wonder why you haven’t,” He said to the group at large. Cynthia startled awake when Noire pinched her shoulder again.

“Our leader told us not to, so we’re not going to,” Brady said like it was the simplest thing in the world.

The guard laughed at that statement. “Which leads me to my next question, where you all from because I’ve been assuming you’re all Nohrian, but I’m starting to think that’s wrong.”

“Nohri-” Cynthia started to ask in a sleepy haze, but Kjelle cut her off.

“What makes you say that?” Kjelle glared at the guard, who just looked between her and Cynthia.

“Call it a hunch and answer the question,” He finally replied. The group fell silent. The only locations they knew currently where Hoshido and now Nohr, and the guard had cut both of those places off as options.

“We’re Hoshiden,” Lucina said and the other two guards at the front of the caravan turned around.

“If you’re gonna lie that boldly at least go for Nohr lady,” One of them said.

“I’m not lying, we’re all Hoshiden. When we get to the border patrol center you’ll see we’ve never even crossed the border.”

Laurent tried to hold his tongue as he thought they’d also see that the group had no way to prove they exist either.

“If you’re such loyal Hoshidens what’s the name of the youngest Hoshiden princess?” The guard in the caravan asked and Lucina bit her thumb trying to think of an excuse why they wouldn’t know.

There was a long tension in the caravan as everyone waited for someone else to talk.

“Right,” the guard said and turned to face the road ahead, the sky had been getting darker as the time crawled on. Looking to the side of the road the plants were doing much worse then the ones from the start of the journey.

Out on the horizon Lucina saw they were headed to a massive canyon. The guards seemed disinterested in it, and while Lucina’s group was trying to emulate that, they all looked over trying to get a better view of the canyon.

The caravan pulled up to a small building near the edge of the canyon, one of the guards got out to unhook the horses and let them graze. “Well, if none of you have seen the bottomless canyon before that’s a point to your story,” He said.

“Bottomless?” Cynthia asked as she reached out of the caravan too pet her pegasus.

“It’s the Nohrian border,” The guard who had been sitting with them said before walking over to Cynthia and slapping her arm back into the caravan. “You all stay here in the caravan while we figure out what to do with you.”

“Well,” Nah said as the guards left them alone to go into the building, probably to get back-up.

As she’d been talking Gerome leaned over and grabbed his axe, to which Lucina turned and scowled.

“They have not tried to attack us yet Gerome, let’s not make this any more violent than it has to be. Put the axe down,” Her tone left little room for argument. Gerome huffed but didn’t move to put the axe back, instead leaning over to hook it into the holder on Minerva’s saddle.

“The second something goes wrong, Minerva’s attacking those guards,” He said. Lucina nodded to that, happy with Gerome’s compromise.

“What we need to be doing right now is trying to get our story straight, we’re not planning on telling the truth are we?” Laurent asked.

“No, I doubt they’d believe us anyway,” Kjelle agreed.

As they agreed they should do something they heard a voice approaching, “There are how many of them?!-  no, no, we can handle this.” Another guard walks over to the caravan with the stride of an annoyed leader. “Everyone out. Now,” He said.

Lucina cringed at the order but stood up and exited anyway. “Alright, we’re coming.” When everyone but Noire and Morgan were standing around being watched by the guards the lead guard decided they weren’t moving fast enough.

“We’re going to have to put you all in holding until we can figure out where you’re from and we can send you back,” The guard told her. Lucina didn’t like the idea of getting her group locked up the first day they’d been somewhere else.

“Hey you! You need to move,” He said harshly and approached Noire, which caught the attention of the group that had already left the caravan.

“Uhh,” Noire stuttered.

“Hey don’t do that!” Brady yelled when he realized his friend was getting singled out. Two of the guards that had been traveling with them jumped to hold him back when he tried to go help.

“You have to be careful with her,” Morgan tried to but and she got brushed off.

“Come on then,” the guard said and grabbed onto Noire’s arm to pull her forward.

“INSOLENT FOOL! DON’T TOUCH ME!” Noire snapped, in her rage she jumped forward with all her body weight knocking both her and the guard to the ground. Brady pushed passed the guards that had been holding him since they were startled.

“NOIRE!” Lucina yelled desperate to keep the situation under control. Her cry went un-answered as a very familiar whistle demanded her attention when Gerome signaled Minerva to swoop and knock one of the guards away with her tail.

Brady managed to pull Noire off the lead guard. She’d been scratching at him and while none of them looked very serious, it must have hurt. “Brady! Put me down!” Noire yelled. “THESE FOOLS INTEND TO LOCK US UP!”

“Calm down Noire!” Brady said and didn’t let go of her as the lead guard stood up and backed up to the rest of them.

Gerome took his axe from Minerva’s saddle and pointed it at the guards.

“You know?” the head guard said. “I’d bet my left hand these guys are all Nohrian, we should report them for crossing without permission.”

“Lucina here!” Morgan said and tossed Lucina her falchion. Even with everything going wrong Lucina always felt calmer with her father’s sword in her hands.

When the whole group was finally armed they stood at a stand-still with the four guards.

“We don’t want to hurt anyone,” Lucina started. One of the guards scoffed at her but she ignored him. “You say you plan to turn us over to Nohr, in that case; we’ll go willingly. Just promise to not follow us.”

Her voice was firm and there was a silence that filled the air after she spoke, perhaps the guards weren’t used having demands being made of them.

Laurent opened his tome as a threat, “You should take the offer, we still out number you.”

The lead guard sighed and lowed his sword. “Fine, grab your things and don’t come back.” A couple of the other guards protested that decision, but Lucina was eager to get her group away before they changed their minds.

 

 

There was only an old wooden bridge over the canyon and it creaked when the group tried to cross it. Lucina decided it was best for them to go across two at a time.

“Why do you think they called it the Bottomless Canyon...?” Yarne asked nervously as he looked down into the darkness.

“I’ll give you three guesses,” Nah replied and kept walking.

“I mean it has to have a bottom, right?” Yarne pushed, and his shoulders noticeably relaxed when the two made it across.

“If a tree falls in the woods and no one hears it, does it make a sound?” Nah only replied to her husband’s question with another.

“yes. There’s no reason something stops existing just because no one is around to observe it,” Laurent said annoyed when he heard Nah bring up that thought experiment. He and Lucina had been the last group to walk across. “So there has to be a point where the two walls of the canyon meet ground.”

“The bottom of the canyon must be very real to the ones who die when they hit it,” Gerome commented as he and Cynthia landed when the last group had made it across. Yarne tried to act like the statement hadn’t scared him as much as it had.

“Anyway, we should get moving away from the border,” Kjelle said.

“Yeah, the last thing we want is the Nohrians to find us and throw us back into Hoshido for being too loud or something,” Morgan commented and then yawned. It was only the afternoon, but the group was so sleepy.

“Maybe, we should, set up a camp for the night? I don’t think many of us can keep walking,” Noire commented. It was true that since the adrenaline from their last encounter wore off the group was struggling to stay awake.

“We can build a fire over there,” Gerome commented and pointed down the road to a clearing.

The walk was quiet because of everyone’s energy levels being drained.

“I don’t understand what we’re doing wrong,” Lucina commented, and the group turned to listen to her. “None of us were treated like this when we went to the past.”

“A single stranger is a charity project, a group is a threat,” Gerome replied without missing a beat.

Lucina wanted to protest the statement, but she couldn’t form any coherent replies. She just sighed instead. They needed to focus on setting up camp anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What do you call jet-lag in a world where jets don't exist ??? XD Anyway thanks for reading!


	6. Restart

Morgan rolled over onto her side, which woke her up when she realized that she was sleeping on ground. Sitting up, her cloak fell into her lap and she moved to put it on again.

The fire they made before going to sleep was still burning though it was noticeably dimmer. Nah had curled up under Minerva’s wing with Yarne laying on his back a little further away. Cynthia had also curled into the wing of her pegasus. Brady and Kjelle where both on their sides near the fire. Lucina and Gerome were sleeping against a tree and Morgan assumed they fell asleep on lookout duty.

Thinking of that, Morgan looked around to see if anyone was making sure they wouldn’t get mugged and eventually spied her two missing friends sitting by a different tree a little ways away.

“Good morning,” Laurent told her when she walked over to where he and Noire were sitting.

“Is it morning? It’s still dark,” Morgan commented.

“Well, depending on your definition of morning,” Laurent shrugged. Morgan looked up to the sky and couldn’t identify a single star. She could only make out a patch of clouds that were a little brighter than the rest, where she assumed the moon was.

“I wonder if it’s going to rain today,” She asked aloud.

“I don’t think so,” Noire spoke. “This place’s dirt reminds me of Plegia, it’s probably a desert.”

“We’ll have to be careful with the fire when we leave then,” Morgan replied. They didn’t need to be responsible for burning down a forest on top of having no proof of who they were.

Morgan moved to sit down facing slightly away from her friends to help with the lookout. She hadn’t been sitting down for long when there was more shuffling near the fire and Yarne sat up. Morgan signaled for him to be quiet and walk over.

“What’s up?” He asked rubbing his eyes.

“Nothing much, how’d you sleep Bunny?” Morgan asked and Yarne glared at her for using the nickname he hated.

He ignored her and sat down with the group. Noire looked like she wanted to say something and eventually Laurent spoke for her. “Earlier, Noire and I noticed that the fire is starting to die down. Would the two of you be against getting more firewood?”

Morgan looked between the two of them for a few seconds, Noire scratched her temple, “We just, didn’t want anyone staying on their own so we waited for two people to wake up.”

“Sure!” Morgan chimed happily, Yarne looked like he wanted to protest but Morgan grabbed her friend’s hand before he could. “We’ll be back soon!”

“Don’t go too far!” Laurent called after them as she retreated.

Morgan let out a laugh when she processed what Laurent told her. Yarne eventually got his feet under himself and walked close to his friend.

“There’s not much on the ground huh?” Morgan asked and looked around. Yarne looked to confirm what she’d said and sure enough it was just dirt.

“You’re right,” he said. Looking around, none of the trees had any leaves on them to drop onto the ground and the whole place had an eerie feel. “I wonder if the trees here are in hibernation or just dead…”

“Hmm,” Morgan said and looked up at the trees when he’d brought them up. Without much thought Morgan reached up and pulled on one of the twigs from the tree.

She’d been intending on pulling down a twig to look at it, so she was almost as startled as Yarne was when she’d pulled down the whole branch it was connected to.

“Oh!” Morgan exclaimed and moved her hand to support the branch in a better spot.

“Morgan!” Yarne hissed at her. Morgan turned around and started to reply when they both heard something.

“What was that?!” A voice called out.

“Show yourself!” Another came from the same direction, exactly opposite their camp. Morgan froze as Yarne started to run back to their camp site. Morgan had been looking on directly ahead, only finding it in herself to move when she saw two figures heading to her.

She threw the branch in their direction before bolting off after Yarne.

“Hey!” A woman’s voice yelled after her. Morgan didn’t turn around to see if the branch had connected.

“Everyone up!” Morgan yelled when she’d made it back to the clearing and was greeted with the annoyed sight of everyone already awake. Yarne must have taken care of that.

“Morgan? What happened?” Lucina asked confused, she’d picked up her falchion at least.

“Are you alright?” Noire walked over and put her hand on Morgan’s shoulder.

“Where’d you go you little brat?!” the voice called and made it into the clearing. Morgan turned around to see her chaser. The woman had long blonde hair she’d tied back in a cutesy bow, though her face looked like she was panicking and she held the branch Morgan had thrown. An imposing man came up behind her.

“Ah, there you are,” The woman started and plastered on one of the fakest smiles Morgan had ever seen.

“I think you, dropped, this _Sweetheart,_ ” The woman said and shoved the branch at Morgan who could only accept it in utter confusion. Morgan could almost feel the venom in the woman’s words.

“I, uh, I’m sorry?” Morgan finally settled on saying.

“Oh! Don’t worry about it at all, I’m sure we were all just on edge because of the dark,” The woman said, finally getting rid of the outward anger in her voice, though Morgan suspected it was still there. “What are your names then?” She asked.

“My, my name’s Morgan,” Morgan finally muttered before dropping the branch down by the fire.

“I’m Lucina, if there’s a problem you can talk to me,” Lucina said putting herself in front of her cousin.

“I’m Benny and this is Charlotte,” The guy cut in front of Charlotte before she could say anything.

“Alright then,” Gerome muttered and moved to stand behind Lucina.

“It’s not safe in these woods you know, why are you all camping out here?” Benny cut to the chase.

“Oh uh,” Lucina tried not to panic. “We’re capable of taking care of ourselves.”

“But still,” Benny pushed. 

“More than that we’re so close to the Hoshiden border,” Charlotte commented and then sighed. The group froze at that praying this wasn’t going to end the same way it had yesterday. “Look I know Nohr has never been well off, but I promise we are getting better! There’s no reason to go to Hoshido.”

“Huh?” Noire made a small noise of confusion and they all stood there staring at Charlotte for a second. Lucina figured she could save this situation if Charlotte and Benny thought they were Nohrian and not Hoshiden.

“Oh, no, that’s not the case, we’re,” She paused trying to think of a reasonable excuse.

“Wanderers!” Yarne suggested at the same time as Nah snapped, “Looking for work!”

Before Lucina could process what was said her cousins tried to help. “We’re hikers!” Morgan yelled.

And Brady tried to cover her statement saying, “We’re going to the Nohrian capital!”

Charlotte laughed into her hand as Lucina glared at her group before anyone threw another ridiculous excuse onto the pile.

“They’re a little disorganized but not wrong,” Lucina said and tried not to look too defeated as she said, “We’re wandering hikers, hoping to find work at the capital.”

“Wh- what kind of work do hikers find exactly?” Benny stuttered.

“That’s just a hobby, y’know?” Lucina wished it sounded even halfway genuine.

“Walking is a hobby for wanderers?” Charlotte asked and put her hands on her hips.

“You gotta love what you do?” Morgan suggested.

Charlotte let out a laugh at that. “You can just say if you’re mercenaries you know? I won’t be mad about it, as long as you’re not hired to kill me!”

Lucina and a few of the others let out nervous laughs at that, somehow they’d gotten out of questioning. It was good that Charlotte seemed to jump to conclusions quickly.

“Uh,” Noire started trying to keep a friendly tone. “Why would you be targeted like that?”

Charlotte stopped at that and looked at Noire in confusion. “Oh uh,”

Benny cut in with a stern look on his face, “Do you not know who she is?” He asked.

The group looked at each other for a bit before Laurent replied. “No? Are we supposed to?”

“She’s-” Benny started to answer but Charlotte cut him off, pulling him down into a headlock.

“No there’s no reason in particular!” Charlotte said quickly and shoved her friend down into a huddle to talk privately.

Lucina tried to listen in on what they were saying, it sounded like they were arguing about something. All she had been able to make out was Benny saying, _“They don’t even know who you are,”_ and Charlotte’s reply _“That makes them perfect!”_ Lucina almost didn’t want to know what they were talking about.

Suddenly Charlotte whipped her head around and Lucina tried to look like she hadn’t been trying to listen.

“Hey so, are you guys actually looking for work?” Charlotte asked. “We’ve got a job if you’re interested!”

“This is such a bad idea,” Benny muttered.

“Mercenary work I take it?” Kjelle asked defensively. She didn’t want them getting involved in anything like turf wars without knowing what they were doing.

“It won’t involve killing people if that’s what you’re worried about,” Benny reassured her. “There’s an infestation of Faceless we were sent to take care of.”

“Ah,” Lucina replied and wondered if they could get away with asking what Faceless were, but right then she was leaning towards no. They were clearly supposed to know who Charlotte was and had already admitted they didn’t.

“An infestation?” Cynthia asked. “And the two of you were the only ones sent to take care of it?”

“I know I’m pretty but I’m no wallflower,” Charlotte replied sweetly. “And this guy’s a softie but he can hold his own too. We would be able to handle it on our own, but we would appreciate the help!”

“We’d be able to pay you too, and if you really want to go to Windmire, that’s where we’re going when this is done,” Benny offered.

“If you would, let us think about it for a second?” Lucina asked and turned to the group. Morgan just looked at her and shrugged.

“That’s not helpful,” Lucina scolded, Morgan rolled her eyes before breaking her branch into fire wood.

“If we do this we could gain their favor, but,” Gerome started. “I don’t trust them fully. They’re too quick to offer help.”

“Of course you don’t,” Nah rolled her eyes. “I say we do it, it’s not like we’re doing anything else. And, I kind of want to know what Faceless are,” Nah muttered her last sentence even quieter than the rest of the conversation.

“Alright then, does anyone have a hard objection?” Lucina asked, the group just looked at her and she could feel Charlotte and Benny watching as well. After the silence Lucina turned back to the two strangers. “We’ll help.”

“Great!” Charlotte chimed. “Thanks for the help, if the Faceless turn out to be too much you can get behind Benny and I’ll take them out!”

“I doubt that will happen,” Brady said. They’d been through war, they weren’t going to be scared of what Brady had been assuming were wild animals.

“So how do we find Faceless?” Morgan asked. “Are they nocturnal?”

“Not necessarily,” Benny said and gestured for Morgan to give him the branch. “They don’t sleep so it’s better to hunt them at night, so animals and hunters don’t get caught up in the fight.”

Benny threw a few of the branch pieces Morgan had broken off onto the fire and that caused the smoke to increase.

“Get ready,” Charlotte told them.

Lucina hadn’t known what she was expecting. But the ominous groan that sounded just a little too much like the Risen she’d spent her childhood fighting sent a chill through her.

She turned around to see Gerome start to attack the monster as Charlotte ran past her and finished it off. The thing wasn’t exactly a Risen but it was much too similar for her own comfort.

There was another coming, heading to the light of the fire, Lucina assumed. She decided in that moment she’d be done with panicking, they had promised to help after all.

She ran forward Falchion in hand and lunged at a monster that had been headed for Yarne and Nah. Her strike hadn’t been enough to kill it but soon Yarne’s Taguel form kicked the monster into a nearby tree.

“Thanks Yarne!” She said as he transformed back.

“Now’s not the time for that,” Nah scolded them as she moved closer and held a sword out, the weapon she’d taken up when she couldn’t use her Dragonstone.

“Take this!” Cynthia exclaimed as she made her Pegasus dive and kick the last of the Faceless they’d been fighting.

“I think we’re going to have to move if we want to find the rest of them,” Benny said and started kicking dirt on the fire.

Laurent had ignored Benny’s actions in favor of casting his fire magic over the dead faceless ensuring they weren’t going to get back up.

“That’s a little overkill,” Charlotte told him and he turned around and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

“You can’t be too careful,” He replied.

“If you say so,” Charlotte rolled her eyes. “You guys are pretty experienced fighters, I’d think the castle could use people like you.”

“What was that?” Lucina turned around.

“Oh? Nothing at all! Let’s get a move on, we might be done by sunrise at this rate!” Charlotte said and followed Benny away.

 

Lucina and the others hadn’t gotten used to the monsters called Faceless, but eventually their two partners deemed the forest safe. Lucina ended up taking their offer to head to Windmire, which she assumed was the Nohrian capital.

The travel had gone quickly enough and after two days they were walking down the cobblestone paths of the near deserted town.

“Not many people out today huh?” Morgan asked quietly as she peered into the store front window they were passing to find people.

“Most people in Windmire live in the underground,” Benny told her and gently led her back to the walking group.

“Underground?” Cynthia asked Benny clearly enchanted with the idea, there hadn’t been anything like that back in Ylisse.

“Why is that?” Lucina asked to Charlotte who was leading the group.

“A lot of reasons,” She replied. “Windmire was overrun with Faceless for one, and the nobility enforced hard curfews for lesser classes being out too late…”

“That sounds harsh,” Lucina said.

“Yeah, it was,” Charlotte agreed. “My husband and I have been trying to incentivize people to move back to the surface. But even with the Faceless gone and the curfews lifted it’s hard, most people just want to stay put.”

“Your husband?” Brady asked, it was the first time Charlotte had mentioned anything about herself since Benny had insinuated that the group should know her.

“The King,” Benny said flatly. The group took a while to process what was said.

“Benny!” Charlotte turned around and yelled at her friend.

“What? We’re taking them to the castle, aren’t we?” Benny asked. “You’d have to tell them soon anyway.”

“You, you’re the Queen,” Lucina stuttered. That’s why Benny had been confused when they said they didn’t know her, even if they didn’t recognize her by sight she figured most should know her name.

“In everything but title! Those nobles I was telling you about weren’t exactly happy about their heir marrying a commoner,” Charlotte said and waved the conversation topic off as she headed to the large gate ahead of them.

“Where is this?” Lucina asked as Charlotte signaled for the gates to be opened.

“It’s Castle Krakenburg, have a look inside,” she said happily as Lucina’s group all leaned in to see what she was referring too.

“Oh cool! The castle is underground too!” Cynthia cried.

“It’s certainly impressive,” Laurent commented.

“Yup! Now get moving!” Charlotte said and shoved Brady and Gerome, who had been at the back of the group forward past the gates.

“Why?” Gerome asked and scowled under his mask.

“We said we were going to pay you, that involves going into the castle,” Benny said simply as he past through himself.

After what Lucina considered minimal grumbling from Brady and Gerome they made it to the entrance hall of the castle. They did protest a little, when Charlotte asked a woman named Effie to take Cynthia’s Pegasus and Gerome’s Wyvern to the stables. But Gerome relaxed when the woman said that she had experience with Wyverns, her son road one.

Inside the castle it was grand, but like everything else Lucina had seen in Nohr it was dark. The interior was both poorly lit and seemed to favor deep browns and golds instead of the bright white marble that the castle back home was made of. Lucina decided she liked it though, especially when she saw that they seemed to be installing more torch holders to get more light in the hall.  

“Charlotte dear, you’re certainly home early,” A voice called from the top of the stairwell. When the group looked up they saw a tall woman dressed in black with Lavender hair descending the stairs.

“Camilla! It’s good to see you-” Charlotte was cut off by the woman pulling her into a hug. When Camilla was done with Charlotte she moved onto Benny pulling him down so his head rested on her shoulder.

“Did those Faceless give you a hard time? Is that why you’re home early? I’ll take them out in one swoop for hurting you,” she said petting his head. Benny seemed used to it.

Charlotte cleared her throat to signal Camilla to let Benny out of her grip, “Not at all, since we had some help from these nice mercenaries,” As she spoke she made a sweeping motion to Lucina’s group.

“Yes, I was starting to wonder who these dolls were,” The woman said and her eyes flicked over the group. She’d only seemed mildly interested in their faces, that was until she locked eyes with Cynthia.

Cynthia jumped back as Camilla walked over without breaking eye contact. She might have crashed her face into Cynthia’s if Noire hadn’t thrown herself into the tall woman’s path. They all stayed like that for what felt like forever for Noire and Cynthia. Lucina panicked but when she looked to Charlotte she just shrugged.

Right as Noire was about to start apologizing, because Camilla’s gaze had moved onto her, Camilla turned back to Charlotte in a quick movement. Cynthia let out a breath she’d been holding and Noire’s knees gave out under her.

“I like them,” She said simply and moved back to stand at the front of the group. “I assume they’re the people you had Niles looking into?” She asked Charlotte when the two were standing next to each other.

“Yes, they are. Speaking of the devil, do you know where he is?” Charlotte asked in her sweetest tone and Camilla just laughed.

“Speak his name, and he shall appear,” Another voice called down the stairwell. “Honestly, the kind of things I put up with from in-laws,” The man wore an eye-patch with a cross on it and a thread-borne blue cape, he didn’t dress like royalty despite implying familial relationships to Charlotte and Camilla.  

“Are these the people?” he asked to Benny who nodded. “Great! Because I’ve got a question I’ve been curious about since I started looking into you.”

Lucina felt herself gulp.

“Why would mercenaries have a need to give fake names?” Niles asked flatly. “It cuts off any chances for us to vet your worth and leads to more questions than it covers.”

“What are you talking about? We gave you our real names,” Brady bit back before realizing what was happening.

“What did you find in their background Niles?” Charlotte asked him.

“Nothing!” Niles said and threw the blank papers he’d been carrying, probably for the effect of it. “It’s as clear as a baby’s bum, which incidentally, is how old they’d have to be for it to make any sense!” 

“Hm, that’s certainly not good,” Camilla commented.

“I found a report from the Hoshiden border about a group the right size crossing at the right time, but other than that? Absolutely nothing, they aren’t even Nohrian citizens like the border report assumed, not to mention Benny said they had no idea who Charlotte was.”

“Well?” Camilla asked to the group. “Do you have some kind of defense?”

Lucina bit her lip as she forced her hands to stay at her hips. “it’s, it’s true that we’re not Nohrian, we’re not Hoshiden either though. There was a misunderstanding at the border, so we ended up here,” Lucina decided to admit.

“Can’t you get back to your home? Where are you from?” Benny asked.

“That’s, not really an option for us,” Nah said.

There was a silence in the room and Lucina was sure they were going to get locked up when Camilla spoke up.

“Well, if there’s nothing in their past, there’s nothing stopping them from getting Nohrian citizenship right Niles?” Camilla asked with a sweet tone.

“Of course Milady, if that’s what you want,” He said. “And of course, if the visitors are okay with it as well.”

“Well, yes. That would be very helpful,” Lucina wasn’t quite sure how to reply. They’d just concluded that Lucina’s group had no past, how were they still trusted?

“You look confused,” Camilla laughed and put her arm around Lucina’s shoulders. “Don’t worry! You aren’t the first people with no history to wander into Nohr.”

“Though they certainly do make Odin’s group look like local legends by comparison,” Niles replied as he picked up the papers he’d thrown everywhere.

“Hush you! And go get your husband, I’m sure Leo will know what to do to start the process,” Camilla said and Niles took a bow before leaving.

“I hope you all don’t mind staying around for a while,” Charlotte said as she walked over. “It might take some time for the process to go through. There are a lot of spare rooms open though, so you’re welcome to stay as long as needed.”

“Thanks,” Lucina muttered still confused. “We won’t break your trust.”

“Of course not Dear,” Camilla said. “You wouldn’t see the light of day again if that were the case.” Camilla had said it in the same tone she’d greeted her family in and for some reason it made the threat scarier. Charlotte was busy trying to reassure Noire and Brady that Camilla had been joking while Lucina started to question what she’d gotten her friends into.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cam's not going to kill Lucina, just never let her out of the castle cus' her mother instincts can smell a troubled child from across town. :P


	7. Anxiety

Leo remembered when Elise had pestered him to come to Hoshido for the festival the Nohrian royal family had been invited to, she’d been insistent that he needed a break. But Leo, ever the workaholic had refused and stayed back to watch the castle with Camilla.

He hadn’t expected to regret that decision, the children all needed to stay on top of their studies after all. And, he paused his thoughts, he didn’t trust Niles and Camilla to run the castle on their own. But even so, as Charlotte explained the situation to him his mind did wander to playing Shogi with Takumi under the Hoshiden sun and not, this.

Which brought him to where he was now. Sitting in the library with the third group of strangers he’d talked to that morning. Gerome- the one in the mask, Nah (it was her name, she’d been insistent he not comment on it)- the pregnant woman with ears that looked just a little too much Like Corrin and Kana’s and Yarne- Nah’s husband, who was clearly not human, but he seemed to be hesitant to give a name to his race.

Leo looked over his notes from the other conversations he’d had that day.

He’d already gathered from Lucina that they were from a country in the deeprealms (or perhaps beyond them? He and Lucina had spent more time than necessary trying to figure out if her “Outrealms” and his “Deeprealms” were the same thing). And Cynthia had given that their country was called Ylisse.

Brady had given that his family was somehow related to the royal family of Ylisse and that included him, Lucina and Morgan. But their insistence that it didn’t matter made Leo think they were far down in the line of succession.

The three with him now all sat quietly waiting for him to make the first move. Gerome seemed distrustful and Yarne seemed ready to bolt at any time. Nah however was calm, like a midpoint between the two.

“Alright then, we’ll start with the obvious,” Leo said and the three turned their attention to him. “Yarne, are you some kind of Wolfskin?”

“Uh,” Yarne panicked and Nah leaned over and whispered at him that _Lucina told them to tell the truth._ At Nah’s reminder Yarne cleared his throat. “My race is called the Taguel,” He finally answered.

Leo hummed and stood up from his spot at the desk and turned to the nearest bookshelf in the library.

“You’re not going to find anything on them,” Nah told him. Leo kept looking around where books starting with T were kept.

“You don’t know that for a fact,” He replied, but it did seem she was correct. He’d think of other titles to look for later.

“Well, we’re pretty certain because…,” Yarne muttered the end of his sentence, and Gerome turned away from the conversation.

“Because?” Leo insisted.

“Because the Taguel are near extinct, I’m one of the last,” Yarne admitted. Leo stood there processing the information. Everything he found out about this group made him more and more certain they shouldn’t have left their homeland at all.

“I’m sorry can you repeat that?” Leo had tried not to sound too angry, but he was sure Elise would come off as angry to Yarne at this point.

“It’s not anything to worry about so leave him alone,” Nah cut into the conversation.

“If your people are struggling then you should be doing everything in your power to rebuild the race,” Leo replied.

“It was way beyond saving,” Yarne finally said. “It was only me and my mom, we’d made our peace with that a long time ago.”

Leo let his shoulders fall, he guessed that Yarne had to know more about the situation than he did.

“Alright then, what about you Nah,” He said as he sat down.

“My race is called Manakete, we’re mostly characterized by our longer lifespans,” She said simply.

“How much longer?” Leo asked suspiciously.

“Uh, ten,” She muttered. “Five to ten thousand years? We’ve got dragon blood in us,” She said without actually giving that she could turn into a dragon, not quite sure how that would go over.

Leo paused again, they had clearly saved the most ridiculous group for last.

“Dragon blood runs through my family as well, but it doesn’t make us functionally immortal,” he replied.

“I, uh, Yeah. I don’t like thinking about the future because of it,” Nah admitted.

“It’s fine,” Leo recovered. “Most people that old here were cursed in some regard. So, I was just startled.”

“Most other Manakete consider it a curse,” Nah said and looked down. With that Leo turned his attention to the last stranger who hadn’t said anything the whole conversation.

“What about you Gerome?” He asked. “Is there anything special to know about you?”

“No,” the man replied. Leo tried not to let his annoyance show. All the same Nah leaned into Gerome’s shoulder and he made a grunting noise. She probably kicked him under the table.

“My name’s Gerome. I’m a wyvern rider. My wyvern’s currently in the stables and her name’s Minerva. I’m loyal to Lucina, that’s all. There’s nothing else,” He said with finality. Leo hummed and made some notes, mostly about Nah getting her friends to cooperate.

“Minerva’s a good dragon but she’s not great with new faces! Gerome has to sing to her every night and he gets nervous if they’re apart for more than-” Nah got cut off as Gerome clenched a hand around her mouth.

“That’s more than enough information Nah, thank you,” Leo said to spare Gerome from any further embarrassment.

Walking to the front of the Library he opened the door, “If I could talk to all of you at once,” Leo said to prompt the rest of the strangers to walk in. They seemed on edge, but Leo brushed it off.

“I believe that none of you pose a threat, I can grant you all temporary visas, but the king will have to approve any citizenships,” Leo said simply.

“Only the king can? Isn’t that sort of inefficient?” Laurent asked.

“If the time should come that we need a more efficient system, we will make one. But I doubt that will be any time soon, Xander is more than capable of filling out ten forms,” Leo replied, realizing that his words felt off for some reason. “There are only nine of you.” He eventually said.

“Where’s Noire?” Gerome asked from behind him. The group that had been waiting outside all tensed up again and this time Leo didn’t brush it off.

“We, we tried to stop them honest!” Morgan said. Well now Leo really needed to know what was happening.

He walked out of the library and rounded the hall, most of the strangers on his heels. When he turned the corner, he found Noire in a wrestling match of sorts with his husband.

“Oh look at that, an audience,” Niles teased and the girl threw herself over him and scratched his arm.

“FEINDISH JERK!” She shrieked.

“I’m really sorry,” Lucina tried to explain, they were clearly panicking. “She normally doesn’t last this long.”

Leo just smirked. “They kind of look like siblings, don’t they? Wrestling like that,” Leo could feel Lucina’s group looking at him like he was insane as he walked over to the fight.

“Excuse me, Noire. I apologize for anything my husband has done, but can I borrow him for a while?” Leo’s presence had snapped Noire back to reality and she started apologizing immediately.

“I’m so sorry, I sort of just lost-” Leo put his hand on her shoulder.

“No need to apologize, I’m sure Niles started it,” Leo ignored Niles’s call that Leo should be on his side in this. “But I will need you to restrain yourself for a few days, the king is coming back soon and you’ll all have to be on your best behavior.”

Noire nodded feverishly, and Lucina gave a bow to Leo and said, “I promise we will not do anything out of line.”

Leo smiled at that, “You can relax a bit though, if Charlotte had her way you’d all become castle staff right now.” Lucina laughed, she sure was glad that the king’s wife was so fond of them. “Think of the castle as your home for as long as you’re here.”

“Thank you for your hospitality,” Morgan said from the back of the group. “We really owe you.”

“Not at all, we’re the ones that owe you. You did help Charlotte after all,” Leo said as he put a hand on his husbands back while Niles rubbed at a cut on his arm.

“And I don’t think I’ve seen the castle even half as lively as it’s been since you’ve gotten here! So at least you’re fun,” Niles commented and Leo tried to hide his laugh.

“Anyway, we’ll be taking our leave now. Have a good rest of your day,” Leo called and started walking down the hall.

“Well now what?” Brady asked to the group, Charlotte had said the castle ate dinner when the meal bell went off, which left them with the rest of the day.

“Actually, I’m tired after all that,” Nah confessed. “I was going to take a nap.”

“I, uh, I’ll go with you,” Yarne replied. Nah just shrugged. “See you guys later!”

The group watched their friends retreat in the direction of the servants’ quarters Charlotte had opened for them. Cynthia and Morgan giggled when they rounded the corner.

“He’s more like a puppy than a bunny don’t you think?” Morgan asked, and Lucina turned around to shush her.

“Don’t talk about your friends like that,” She said, but a small smile did spread on her face. She was glad that her friends were happy.

“I sure hope they have fun, sleeping,” Cynthia giggled. Brady turned to her and shoved her shoulder.

“Of all the things I don’t want to think about!” He yelled.

“Anyway, doesn’t it feel weird?” Noire changed the topic before they kept talking. “Just killing time here, after all that moving.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” Brady thought, “I have no idea what to do with myself, honestly.”

“Oh! I have an idea!” Lucina said. “Let’s go spar! I saw a training area this morning.”

“Sure Luce,” Kjelle said and started walking down the hall, the group followed the two.

The castle seemed to be a never-ending maze of hallways and stairs. The rooms Charlotte had opened for them were on the first floor, so the group hadn’t felt the need to go exploring the higher levels of the castle yet. That’s why they failed to notice when a pair of maids came down the stairs.

“uh, ah!” A voice called out as a girl tumbled down, spilling the clothing basket she’d been holding. Noire and Gerome had been able to side step it, and Kjelle had the forward thinking to lunge and catch the girl who fell.

“Are you alright?” Kjelle asked.

“Felicia!” A voice called as the other maid at the top of the stairs put her basket down and ran over.

Felicia opened her eyes to see Kjelle and Lucina hovering over her. All at once she remembered herself, “Oh! Thanks for saving me I’m sorry I’ll clean up right now and, Oh. Are you the new people Jakob told us about?”

Lucina nodded, and the other maid stepped in front of Felicia. “He said your group wasn’t to be trusted.”

“That’s the best assumption on your part, yes,” Gerome replied. “But we are staying here for at least a little while.”

Felicia thought about what he said and then clapped her hands together with a bright smile. “I’m Felicia and this is my sister Flora! Say, if you’re staying around are any of you good at laundry? It’s a bit too much work for just the two of us!”

“Felicia! Don’t shove your chores off on other people! I’m not even always going to be around to help you!” Flora scolded her.

“I can help, I’m good with that kind of thing. Gerome is too,” Brady volunteered with a smile.

“Great! We really appreciate it!” Felicia said completely ignoring her sister.

“We’ll catch you guys later Luce’,” Brady said and helped Felicia pick up her spilled clothes. Soon the four of them were walking off led By Felicia. Neither Flora nor Gerome seemed happy with the set up but neither of them protested.

“It looks like Gerome’s already made a friend,” Noire muttered and those remaining laughed as they headed to the sparring area Lucina had mentioned.

 

 

The sparring area was a walled courtyard with a shed for training weapons off in the corner. Laurent had gone with Lucina to retrieve practice swords.

Noire stretched when they got outside. After so long in the dark halls of the castle, the overcast day was like a clear summer sky to the group.

“Hey look, they actually got plants to grow here,” Morgan said, and Kjelle sighed.

“I’d sure hope they did. If the castle can’t that’s not a good sign for the food supply for the rest of the country.”

“Still, it feels like a different world from Hoshido,” Cynthia said and sat down by Morgan to look at the rose bush she had been inspecting. “I wonder if there are any parks in Windmire? I’d love to go flying sometime,” Cynthia’s mind started to wander as Laurent and Lucina returned.

Lucina had her hands full of practice swords and she had a bright smile on her face. “Alright.” She said as she put them down. “Laurent and Morgan, you’re up first.”

“Huh?” Morgan whined from the ground. “Do you want us to spar with our tomes? Isn’t that a waste?”

“No. Come take this,” Lucina said and held out a practice sword to her cousin, who scowled in reply. “Tacticians should know how to use swords, Morgan.” Lucina stood her ground.

Laurent picked his sword up with less complaints. “I don’t think the two of us will make for experienced partners.” He said to Lucina who also picked one up.

“That’s not the point,” She said. “There might come a time when we have to fight, and we can’t be picky about our weapons.”

“I don’t think there’ll be a point like that where we can’t find tomes, Lord Leo said that they use them here too,” Morgan grumbled but finally took the sword.

“This is about versatility more than anything,” Lucina said. “Now come at me with everything you have!”

Laurent and Morgan looked at each other for a second before figuring out how to hold their swords, Morgan’s father had taught her that much.

Kjelle, Cynthia and Noire all watched on, Noire sat nervous for the point when Lucina decided she needed to learn swordplay too. Cynthia laughed when Laurent and Morgan tried to attack Lucina but ended up hitting each other instead.

Kjelle however, stood on guard. She was sure that the castle would send some kind of spy after them, so when she heard rustling coming from the fence she yelled for them to show themselves.

 

 

Ophelia had been devastated when her father hadn’t let her come along to Hoshido with him. And she had made her opinion known to her friends. She’d started dragging her feet and her speech hadn’t been nearly as poetic as she knew herself capable of.

Soleil’s heart hurt seeing her cousin acting in such a way, so she took the strangers Lady Charlotte had brought home as a chance to get that spark back in Ophelia’s step. The first thing her plan required was recruiting Nina into the stake out, and that’s how they’d found out that Leo was interviewing the new people in the library that morning.

It had worked well enough at first, Ophelia was excited to assess their chosen-ness, but her mood quickly turned sour when she caught a glimpse of, something. She’d bolted from the girl’s hiding place the second she saw it, leaving Soleil and Nina to track her down.

During her charge, Ophelia had picked up Forest somewhere and that led the kids to where they were now.

Soleil sat up on her knees to see over the fence to the group of strangers. They’d gone to start sparring after their interview with Leo and that was when Nina and Soleil had found Forrest and Ophelia spying on them.

“Soleil get down, they’re going to see you,” Nina hissed and grabbed the girl’s sleeve. Soleil rolled her eyes, she was almost as good at “People Watching” as Nina was.

“Wait, so why are we so interested in them?” Soleil asked.

“I saw,” Ophelia started and took a breath. “The woman in the cloak bore the same heroic brand I bare on my arm, it rests on the back of her hand.”

“Wait really?” Soleil gasped. Ophelia had told her all that her father had shared. The birthmark on Ophelia’s arm was proof of her family, a family that she shared with Soleil.

“I would not embellish about this,” Ophelia replied.

“Well, even if it runs in the family who’s to say it’s not from a really long time ago and every other person where they’re from has it?” Nina asked.

“No…” Ophelia thought out loud. If it was that common, her father wouldn’t have instructed her to stay quiet about it.

“Even if that were the case we could still find out things about Ophelia and Soleil’s mysterious homeland,” Forrest suggested, and Ophelia’s face lit up again.

“Though I’ve been wondering,” Forrest started. His gaze narrowed at Soleil and his sister. “Ophelia just told me about her birthmark, but how do you two know? She’s been keeping it secret.”

All three girls blushed at that.

“It, It was an accident!” Soleil stuttered.

“We were just people watching,” Nina replied defensively.

“It’s of no concern, I fear I’d have been driven mad without their ears to listen to my tale, so it works out in the end,” Ophelia dismissed. Forrest had to admit the replies only left him more curious about what happened.

“If you’re sure,” Forrest muttered. He was about to suggest that they go ask the woman about her hand when Soleil moved to stand on her knees and watch what the people were doing again.

“Oh wow,” Soleil started. “They kind of suck. Are they training with weapons they don’t normally use?”

“SOLEIL!” Nina hissed and tugged her down again. This time the noise had been enough to capture the attention of the group.

“Who’s there? Show yourself!” A woman’s stern voice called out to them.

Forrest looked between the three girls, Ophelia was panicking, and Nina was glaring at Soleil. It was then that Soleil signaled for the group to be quiet and stood up.

“Ah ha ha!” Soleil laughed nervously and walked into the training area. “Sorry I didn’t mean to spy! I was just curious, and then I got nervous and y’know how that is,” She stuttered off, standing straight as the group looked on at her.

She could feel the six sets of eyes looking her over, unfortunately for her, the girl Ophelia had singled out as having the brand seemed one of the least interested.

“What’cha curious about? We’d be happy to talk about it!” the girl with curly red pigtails asked with a happy smile. Soleil might have been happy about the older lady showing interest in her, but despite her attitude being the opposite the woman looked way too much like Selena for Soleil to be interested.

“Oh! Well, I was passing through the library this morning and I saw your uh, hand Tattoo! I was super interested in that!” Soleil felt she’d lied handily enough.

“Um, none of us have tattoos though,” A shy woman spoke, and frowned. She seemed much more Soleil’s type, not that she was really going to have a shot with any of them.

“A tattoo on your hand would be way more pain than it would be worth,” The tall man spoke. “You must have seen something wrong in the light.”

Soleil pouted as it suddenly occurred to her that these people could very well have been instructed to stay quiet about their marks in the same fashion that Ophelia had. She steeled herself and pointed to the back of her hand with the other one. “Come on, I know what I saw, it was right here!”

They all looked at her pointing to her hand and Soleil thought she was going to die. The woman with blue hair hadn’t stopped staring at her since she’d come out of hiding and it was starting to freak her out.

Just then the woman Ophelia had singled out made a noise and moved to take off her gloves. “Is this what you’re talking about?” She asked and Gave Soleil her hand.

Soleil looked at it with excitement thinking she’d learn something about her father, but it took one look at the woman’s birthmark to know it wasn’t the same. It looked like a U with eyes running on the parallel lines.

“You look disappointed?” the woman said after a second. Soleil had forgotten herself and let her expression fall.

“It, uh, it doesn’t really look like a tattoo up close,” Soleil admitted. The woman smiled in reply.

“No, it’s not. It’s a birthmark. But isn’t that cool in its own way?” She asked. Soleil pulled herself together and looped her fingers into the woman’s, so they were now holding hands.

“Yeah it’s super cool! Would you mind telling me more about it over tea sometime? Maybe in my room?” Soleil closed her eyes to smile wider so she kind of missed the way the woman’s expression went sour. She hadn’t gotten a reply before she heard a scream from the place she’d left her friends.

“SOLEIL!” Nina shrieked and ran over to pull her away by her headband.

“Ow! Nina! You blew it!” Soleil replied.

“You’re the idiot that can’t stay focused for more than a minute when women are involved!” Nina shot and turned to get a better grip on Soleil. Getting in fights was so childish, and not the way to make a good first impression on all the new women who were staying at the castle, but Nina was asking for it.

Luckily for everyone, Forrest got up from their hiding place and apologized for both of them, causing the girls to remember where they were.

“Really, my sister and Soleil are both excitable is all, I’m really sorry for the trouble!” Forrest said, and eventually Ophelia stood up and walked over as well.

“It’s um, it’s alright, we’re no strangers to childish behavior ourselves,” The one that Forrest’s father had deemed the leader finally spoke.

“So,” The woman in armor walked forward. “Why were you all interested in Morgan’s birthmark?”

“Oh that’s,” Forrest looked to Ophelia who tried to say something before panicking and retreating.

“Ophelia!” Soleil tried to yell after her before getting up and following. Nina was close on her heels, leaving Forrest with the strangers.

“I,” He started. “I hope you can forgive us for spying, and…” He floundered for something to say to get the topic away from Ophelia’s birthmark. “Oh! We just got word from the king! He should be back the day after tomorrow!”

“Thank you for informing us,” Laurent said.

“Yes, now if you’ll excuse me…” Forrest muttered and looked behind him to see if he could locate any of the girls.

“Go ahead,” Lucina told him, and Forrest bolted off in the direction Ophelia and the others had gone.

“They seemed kinda cute,” Noire commented and Morgan rubbed her head.

“They seemed weird to me,” Morgan replied, and the group grunted out agreements with her.

 

 

“Ophelia! Soleil! Nina!” Forrest yelled when he found them in the hallway of the castle. “What was that all about?”

“Forgive me Forrest. I failed my duties as a retainer,” Ophelia said glumly.

Forrest sighed. “Don’t worry about that, Father has already deemed them nonviolent. I’m more worried about you, are you okay?”

“She just panicked when they asked why we wanted to know,” Nina rubbed Ophelia’s back as she informed her brother.

“Though there was no reason to panic,” Soleil said. “The woman’s birthmark looked nothing like yours.”

“What? Impossible!” Ophelia turned and snapped.

“Yeah it’s true, I mean the symbols might be related but they definitely weren’t the same,” Soleil replied.

“My eyes do not play tricks on me!” Ophelia shot back.

“Well, neither do mine, I’m telling you they’re not the same!” Soleil stood her ground. Eventually Ophelia gave up and watched her feet as they walked.

“That can’t be true,” She muttered.

“Well, Uncle Odin should be getting back with the others soon, we should probably just wait for him,” Forrest commented trying to find common ground between the two girls. They both weakly agreed though they refused to look at each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading =^^=


	8. Suspicion

Lucina hadn’t found there to be anything particularly offensive about the kids that had tried to talk to them during their sparring match. Well, that wasn’t necessarily true. There hadn’t been much off with the way the girl acted, but the headband that Soleil wore had caught Lucina’s attention the second she saw it.

That headband was the same one her mother had worn everyday of Lucina’s childhood.

“You can’t be so sure about that Luce,” Brady said to her when she’d explained the situation to him. Right then they were sitting on a balcony watching the laundry he’d been helping with dry, which was going to take a while given the overcast nature of the day.

Brady leaned in closer as he continued, “Remember we’re in another realm. It’s possible that it’s the exact same pattern but it came to a Nohrian tailor instead of a Feroxi one.”

Lucina pouted at the thought. Her mother’s headband was here on a girl with the same hair color as her. Was it really all a coincidence? “I’m not so sure…”

Lucina thought back to the few memories she had of her real mother, the one that had passed during the war. There had been a time, after she had given Lucina her tiara, where Lucina and Inigo had been obsessed with her headband.

She remembered Inigo being convinced that they might lose it, so Olivia took both her kids into her room. They watched as she sewed a marker in it, a piece of fabric with her name. It had made the kids relax and Lucina hadn’t thought of it again. Not until one day Fredrick returned with a grey look on his face and handed her the headband, with her mother’s name in it.

Lucina sighed again and tried not to think about the parts of the story she didn’t need. She didn’t need to think about how at the time her mother had been dying, she and Inigo had been playing games only to find out days later.

No, she only needed to know that if the headband Soleil wore had ever belonged to her mother, then the name “Olivia” would be sewn on the inside.

“I’d just need to see the inside,” Lucina said out loud.

“What are you going to do? Steal a kid’s clothes?” Brady asked sarcastically.

Lucina thought about it, there were baths here somewhere according to Felicia’s story about the time she froze them over. Maybe she’d just wait until Soleil went in.

“Luce, you can’t steal from a child,” Brady said when she hadn’t outright denied it.

“I know but,” Lucina muttered. Brady was right though, she’d hate it if someone decided that they needed to see inside something of her’s just to put their own mind at ease.

“Pardon the intrusion,” A voice said as the door to the interior of the castle opened. “Flora told me Felicia asked for your help, so here.”

The man had his silver hair pulled back with a bow and was carrying a tray of tea and small cookies. He placed it by Lucina who then felt the need to correct him.

“Oh, I didn’t really help. That was Gerome, I think he already left,” She said, and the man scowled for a second.

“Well his loss then. I just wanted to clear up any debt we owe you people,” the man said.

“Yeah, yeah. You don’t trust us,” Brady replied. “Hey, what can you tell us about a girl named Soleil?”

“Soleil? She’s the retainer to Prince Sigbert. Why do you need information on her?” The man turned to the conversation.

“She just reminds me of someone,” Lucina admitted, trying to be as vague as possible.

“Well now, her father is one of the people who also has no background, maybe you’re feeling a connection because of that,” The butler said and turned away. “Either way it’s not my business.”

“Thanks Jakob,” Brady called after Jakob sarcastically. “He doesn’t trust us, frankly I’m surprised more people in the castle don’t feel the same way.”

“Yeah,” Lucina replied. “I guess I’m going to try and find the girl now,” Lucina stood and walked to the door Jakob had just exited from.

“Lucina, stop and think about this for a second. How physically, could it possibly be the same headband?” Brady called.

Lucina sighed, what had even happened to the headband? Her mother from the timeline they saved still had hers, and hadn’t they left the first headband behind in the castle when they went to the past?

“I have no Idea honestly,” Lucina admitted. Brady didn’t reply, and Lucina moved to open the door and leave.

 

 

Finding Soleil hadn’t proved much of a challenge, she’d been in one of the first places Lucina checked, the kitchen area.

“Miss Soleil?” Lucina asked, and the girl turned around suddenly at the noise, looking an awful lot like she’d been caught doing something she shouldn’t have.

“Ah! Hello Miss…” She trailed off and moved her body to cover what she was doing on the counter.

“Lucina,” Lucina saved the other girl.

“Right! Good afternoon Miss Lucina, do you need something?” She said happily.

“What do you have behind your back there?” Lucina asked playfully. She leaned one way and the girl followed.

“Uh, nothing…” Soleil tried to lie but gave up quickly. “Okay, I made some tea. I thought maybe the maid would want to have a cup with me.”

“Oh, that’s too bad,” Lucina said.

“It is?” Soleil asked confused.

“Yes, I was quite hoping you’d be willing to have a chat with me over tea. But if you already have plans then…”

“Ah! No, and it’ll be great that the tea I made won’t go to waste,” Soleil said and finally moved to show Lucina the tea pot she’d been trying to hide.

“Well that’s a relief,” Lucina smiled. “Would you be willing to come back to my room then, the matter I want to talk about is private.”

Soleil seemed excitable as she gathered the cups and teapot, Lucina thought it was kind of cute.

Lucina led her down the hall to where her group was staying.

“Oh wow, I haven’t been in this area of the castle before!” Soleil said and looked up at the ceiling decorations in the hall.

“Really?” Lucina asked.

“Well not a lot of people live and work in the castle, it’s full of halls like this that we seal off in the winter time,” Soleil said. “Or at least so I’ve heard. I’ve only lived here a year myself.”

Lucina giggled at that and opened the door to the room she’d been staying in. It was small, but it did have a table, two chairs and a bed. Soleil moved and put the cups and teapot down on the table as Lucina sat down.

“Here you are Milady!” Soleil said with a grin and handed Lucina a cup.

“Thank you so much,” Lucina played along.

“So, uh,” Soleil stuttered for a bit. “What exactly did you want to talk about?”

“Hmm,” Lucina thought about the best way to broach the topic. “To be honest I’ve been interested in your headband.”

“My headband?” Soleil asked, and her face lit up. “It’s cute isn’t it? My dad gave it to me! He always says it really suits me, so I wear it whenever I get the chance!”

“Your dad did?” Lucina asked. “Do you happen to know where he got it?”

“Uh, does it matter? You could ask a tailor to make you another if you want one,” Soleil replied.

“No, it’s not… hm,” Lucina thought about what she was going to say. Perhaps the best way to connect to the girl was to find common ground. Eventually Lucina reached up and took her tiara off. “This tiara was given to me by my mother.”

Soleil looked on, unsure of the change in topic. Lucina kept talking. “When she gave it to me, she told me it was for special occasions, but I loved it so much I wore it whenever I could.”

“I’m sure your Mom is very cute if she raised someone like you,” Soleil chimed in.

“She was,” Lucina replied. She felt bad when Soleil’s face dropped. “Well, bringing it back to you, my mother always wore a headband that looked just like yours. That’s why I wanted to know where you got it.” 

Soleil reached up and took her headband off, Lucina still couldn’t see the inside because of the way Soleil was holding it. “I, I don’t know where my dad got this. There are a lot of things I don’t know about my dad honestly.” Soleil admitted. “He and his friends have always been secretive about their histories, I used to think I knew everything important about him but…”

“But?” Lucina asked, she hadn’t meant to walk on any sore topics.

“Do you remember Ophelia? She was with me and Forrest when we went to talk to you guys,” Soleil asked.

Lucina’s mind went to the girl who had bolted right after Kjelle asked them what they wanted. “Yes, I do.”

“So, I started flirting with her a lot around the time the war ended,” Soleil said and leaned in. “I uh, made her uncomfortable at first but eventually we talked it over and found boundaries.”

“That’s good,” Lucina said.

“It was only after all that, that Dad and Uncle Odin thought they should tell us that we’re cousins!” Soleil replied annoyed. “Nina and the others all made fun of me for days on end.”

“Your dad withheld that information from you?” Lucina asked shocked, why would they feel the need to hide familial ties like that.

“That’s not what made me angry,” Soleil admitted. “They waited until Ophelia wasn’t running away at the sight of me to say anything. Like they thought it would be okay as long as she didn’t reciprocate.”

“That’s horrible,” Lucina agreed.

“So, yeah. After that, I’m less certain of what I know about my dad,” Soleil said taking a sip from her tea.

“I’m, I’m sure that your father and Uncle had their reasons,” Lucina tried to comfort her.

“Can you think of anything?” Soleil asked her in a monotone.

“… No, I can’t say that I can,” Lucina gave up. “Family means the world to me. I can’t imagine thinking I wasn’t related to my cousins.”

“Here, you wanted to look at it didn’t you?” Soleil said and held out her headband. Lucina took it gently and unfolded it to see the inside. Soleil looked on as Lucina found a name tag in the right place.

She’d held her breath at first, convinced there wouldn’t be anything there, so her heart soared when she saw the nametag. But any hope she had fell when she read the name, it was Soleil’s.

“Did you, find what you wanted?” Soleil asked her quietly.

Yes, Lucina thought. She had found what she was looking for, not what she wanted to find but it was something. Brady had been right, and at least her mind was finally at peace.

Lucina stood up and walked over to Soleil before putting the headband back on her. “Your father was right, it does suit you.”

Soleil’s face flushed at the action and compliment, “Eh-he, thanks for saying so! You’re really-” Soleil stopped cold when she noticed something.

“What’s wrong?” Lucina asked trying not to panic at the girl’s sudden change in behavior.

“Your eye!” Soleil shrieked and jumped out of her chair, standing on her heels to see Lucina’s brand closer.

“Oh, is that all?” Lucina laughed and pushed soleil a little further away. “This is called the Brand of the Exalt, it runs in my family.”

Soleil sat down, her smile from earlier completely gone. “Oh, really?”

“Yes, um, it might be weird to have a birthmark in my eye, but it doesn’t impair my sight, so I’ve never thought much of it,” Lucina tried to figure out why it had caused Soleil to react in such a way. She guessed it would be weird for people to have odd pupils.

“Oh uh, I didn’t mean to imply-” Soleil jumped up and started collecting the empty cups. “Your eyes are really pretty! Honest!”

She was panicking and clearly hadn’t expected the teapot to still be half full when she picked it up, yelping when her hand touched the hot bottom.

Lucina grabbed it before it fell back onto the table, “Soleil, is everything alright?”

“Uh, yeah I just, um I remembered I have to help Prince Sigbert with something!” Soleil said. Moving to grab the handle of the teapot and holding the cups Soleil all but charged out the door, leaving Lucina confused in her room.

“Nina and Dwyer are going to have a field day with this,” Soleil muttered to herself as she ran down the hallway.

 

 

Brady hadn’t had much idea what he wanted to do with himself after Felicia had come back and thanked him for the help saying he could go. He’d lingered a few minutes to watch the girl, worried that she’d trip and fall again like he’d already seen her do twice. But eventually he had to leave and do something else.

He walked through the dimly lit halls, unsure of where to go until he noticed a presence behind him. Stopping in his tracks and turning around he thought he saw long blonde hair and a yellow cape darting behind a pillar.

 _Do they think I didn’t see them?_ Brady asked himself before shaking his head. From what he’d seen it seemed a lot of people in the royal family here had blonde hair, so he figured he’d leave it be.

He turned back and walked a few more paces, aware of the tail he’d acquired following him.

He stopped and turned around again and got a glimpse of her whole figure this time. She was small, likely a child and that made him wonder what she wanted from him.

He walked faster this time and rounded a corner quickly deciding to turn around and stare while he waited for her. She leaned over the corner to try and find him, jumping back when she saw him standing there.

“Hey,” He said and looked at the girl. The first thing he noticed as she looked at him with wide eyes was that they were the exact same grey green color Lissa had. He quickly wrote that thought off as feeling guilty for having left home as the girl picked herself up off the floor.

“Explain yourself,” She said sternly. A strand of her hair fell over her shoulder, it wasn’t the same gold that Charlotte and Leo had, if Brady were to place it he’d say it was the color of Maribelle’s hair, and he cursed at failing to not think of his mothers.

“You’re kidding right?” He asked. “You’re the one that was tailing me!”

“I simply wish to ensure the safety of my lieges! You’re an unknown cloud that plagues us!” She said to him, Brady tried his best to not look alarmed at the child’s speech pattern.

“So, you’re a retainer then?” He asked, she seemed startled that he’d cut through her fluffy words so quickly. “The only royal I’ve talked to here is Lord Leo, and he doesn’t seem the type to employ children.”

“How?!” She asked suddenly. “All mortals are at least tripped by my poetry,” She muttered and glared.

“Mortals…?” Brady asked.

“I am a chosen hero! You’re nothing compared to my power, so you’ll regret approaching my lieges!” She was shouting now.

“I already told ya, I don’t even,” Brady took a breath, he needed to talk to this girl on her own level he guessed. He never thought the lessons Owain had given him in ‘proper speech’ were ever going to come in handy, but there was a first time for everything. “I don’t care if you have the energy of a thousand dead ancestors coursing in your blood or anything. I wish to inquire what a chosen hero wants with me, I’m but a mere bard.”

As he talked he noticed the girl grab at a bandage on her arm. “Ah, you hurt er’ something kid?” He let the tone of speech fall as he reached out, but the girl threw her shoulder away from him.

“I know what you are,” The girl said darkly, having dropped her own speech pattern. She was clearly the one keeping the pace of the conversation.

“I doubt that…” Brady replied. The more the girl talked the more Brady realized, she didn’t resemble Lissa or Maribelle, she most closely resembled Owain, her grey eyes like Lissa and her platinum hair like Maribelle. He wasn’t sure what to do with the information.

“You’re my arch-rival!” She said and pointed.

“Huh?”

“Father always said, there was someone out there who would rival my power! That they would try to take it for their own!” She kept going. Brady had no idea how to reply to any of this.

“I really don’t want your power, uh,” Only then did he realize the girl had somehow forgotten to introduce herself threw their whole dance of a conversation.

“’PHELIA! ‘PHELIA! OPHELIA!” A new voice called down the hall to their left, both Brady and the girl turned to see the source. “OPHELIA!”

The girl who’d been yelling came to a running halt right in front of Ophelia, and nearly spilled the tea pot she was holding.

“You were right! Oh gods! You were-” She was stuttering and only stopped when Ophelia elbowed her gut and gestured to Brady. “Ow! Oh, Hello.”

The girl nodded to acknowledge his presence which he mimicked. “My name’s Soleil, a pleasure to make your acquaintance,” She said with the sound that she was just reciting lines from a manors class.

“Pleasure’s mine,” Brady said. “Don’t mind me, you seemed to have something important to talk about.”

“Oh!” Soleil said suddenly. “No, nothing at all. It was nothing. Forget it.”

“Uh-huh,” Brady replied and looked the two over. This must be the same girl Lucina had shown an interest in. The headband did look familiar now that he was thinking about it.

“Do you like tea? Here!” Before waiting for his reply Soleil shoved the tea pot and cups she was holding into Brady’s hands and bolted with Ophelia on her tail.

Brady cursed. If he’d wanted to follow them that meant that he’d have to stop and put the china pot and cups down giving them enough of a head start that it wasn’t worth it. He wondered it that had been the girl’s plan. Either way he figured the best course of action was to take the set back to the kitchen.

 

 

Everything was a maze in this castle, Brady thought. From conversations where he got no information except that the girl talked like his lost brother, to the gods-damned halls being never ending. Maybe he was complaining too much because he did eventually find the kitchen.

“Oh, You must be one of the new people,” A tired boy with the same hair color as Felicia said. “My name’s Dwyer.”

“Brady,” Brady replied. The boy was looking at him expectantly as Brady wondered if Felica and Flora also had a brother they hadn’t mentioned. “Oh, a girl named Soleil shoved this at me an’ ran off. Where does it go?”

Dwyer made a clicking noise with his mouth and took the pot out of his hands, “She must have been bothering the maids again, I banned her from using the tea pots because of that.”

“Sounds annoying,” Brady said to the boy. He wasn’t really paying too much attention to what Dwyer was doing. The girl that Lucina thought had the same headband as her mother was friends with the girl who looked and talked like his brother, Maybe Lucina had been onto something after all.

“Thanks for returning it,” Dwyer said and then paused. “Uh, Dinner’s almost done. You can go wait in the hall.”

“Huh? You don’t need any help?” Brady thought if he was already here early, he might as well.

“Well? I’ve already set the plates, there’s a basket of forks over there that needs to be taken out” Dwyer said and then turned away to focus on what he was cooking.

Brady walked out into the dining hall to find that some of his friends were already there. There were also some people he didn’t recognize. He put the basket down in the center of the table and walked over to Lucina, Cynthia, Gerome and Yarne.

“Where’s Nah?” Brady asked to Yarne as he sat down.

“She’s really not feeling well, I’m going to bring her some food so she can sleep longer,” Yarne explained.

“Must be hard,” Brady said, not really paying attention. He was caught up thinking about the girl he’d run into. There was no way she was related to Owain, but it bothered him to no end. That thought brought him to Lucina’s determination to find her mother’s headband.

“Hey, Luce,” He started. “What happened with the girl?”

“Ah…” Lucina said, and a wistful smile came on her face. “You were right. It was silly of me to think they were related.”

“really? You’re sure?” Brady pushed. Lucina seemed to have completely reversed her position on the matter since he’d last talked to her.

“Yes, Soleil said that she got the headband from her father. I think your theory was correct,” Lucina sighed and looked down at the cup of water she held.

“Headband? From her father? What are you two talking about?” Cynthia asked confused.

“There was a girl who had a headband similar to my mother’s, I asked her about it,” Lucina said, then she seemed to remember something. “Oh right! Her father is one of the other people with no past, she told me that those people are brothers.”

“Brothers huh?” Brady asked and sunk onto the table. It seemed like nothing that day was going to let Brady forget about Owain for a second.

The pause in the conversation was more tangible as the other conversations in the room hit a lull.

Cynthia pouted and turned to him, speaking a in a hushed tone so only her friends could hear. “It’s, It’ll be fine. I’m sure that they,” Cynthia stopped and bit her lip when she said the word. “Severa and the others will get home and figure out where we went. Then they would only have to get to Lady Tiki.”

At that moment Noire walked over and sat down with them as the conversations at the table picked back up. She didn’t say anything but the small smile she sent over to Brady and Cynthia said that she knew what they were talking about.

Lucina nodded and decided that she was going to bring this conversation back into happy territory. “Well, hopefully by the time that happens, we’ll have enough of a presence here that we can vouch for them.”

“You’re still assuming they’re alive at all,” Gerome said as his first addition to the conversation.

“You’re still being an ass,” Brady muttered in reply. He didn’t really want to be having this chat with Gerome again.

“Gerome,” Lucina said and turned to look the man in his eyes through his mask. “It’s okay you know? To admit you miss them just as much as the rest of us,” Gerome didn’t say anything turning away from Lucina’s gaze. He’d tried to keep a calm exterior, but he could feel his act slipping.

“You’re right,” Gerome finally gave after Lucina had kept glaring at him. “But it’s best to stay realistic than hopeful.”

“Well, that can be your job,” Lucina said and looked up as Dwyer came out and put a plate with bread on the center of the table. “And I’ll work to keep our hope up.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	9. Resurrection

Selena let out a dramatic sigh and leaned over the side of the cart. They’d left fort Jinya four days ago and they were almost home to Windmire. Selena knew that, but somehow that knowledge seemed to make time go slower.

No one had budged when she’d made her noise, which she took to mean that the rest of the caravan agreed with her. Even Corrin and Elise had given up trying to make conversation around midday yesterday.

Selena looked up at the cloudy sky. When they’d first made it back to Nohr she’d thought that she kind of missed them, but now she was growing tired of them again. She watched Beruka fly next to the caravan to get her wyvern the exercise she needed. For all Beruka acted like she didn’t have emotions she had always been fond of her wyvern. That thought brought Selena back to their days in the war, a time and place she tried her best not to think about.

 

 

_The army that Corrin and Azura had managed to form around themselves hadn’t had much time to rest when they’d landed in Valla. And the time they did have to rest was hardly, restful. With so many new recruits, both from Hoshido and Nohr the anxieties that had been starting to settle were back in full swing._

_Selena stretched as she listened to Corrin run around with Anthony on her heels, trying to take roll._

_“Selena!” Corrin said and ran over. “Have you seen my sister?”_

_“Lady Camilla’s still getting ready to march, she should be done soon though,” Selena replied without much thought, her eyes had fallen on the kid Corrin was so insistent they keep around. He just weirded her out._

_“Alright then! Thank you for telling me! Oh, also, can you keep an eye on Laslow? He’s been trying to flirt with the Hoshiden troops…” Corrin muttered. It was always impressive that the girl was able to keep track of all the relations in her army. Selena had no idea where she’d heard that she and Laslow were friends, but it didn’t surprise her that Corrin knew._

_“That idiot! Don’t worry Milady, I’ll take care of him,” Selena said, and Corrin broke out into a relieved smile._

_“Thank you so much! I know I should be grateful he’s trying to get to know the others, it’s more than most.”_

_“But he’s over doing it and coming off as rude?” Selena finished, and Corrin nodded sheepishly. “It’s okay, go back to your role call!” Selena gave a playful shove to the princess who let out a laugh. Anthony glared at Selena but didn’t say anything._

_“Come on Anthony, we need to go find Takumi too,” Corrin said and the two were off._

_Selena let out a huff, she was glad that her friends had finally gotten their lords to come to their senses and join Corrin in her efforts, but it seemed like things weren’t quite in place yet. She turned on her heels with the full intent of hunting Laslow down and holding him in a headlock until he apologized to the women he’d been bugging, but Beruka caught her eye._

_She was wondering around the camp and clearly jittery, she only ever got that way when she couldn’t find Camilla._

_“Beruka? What’s wrong?” Selena said as she walked over._

_“Selena,” Beruka said and forced herself to hold still. “It’s nothing.”_

_“Huh?” Selena replied indignantly and put her hands on her hips. “It’s clearly not.”_

_“I just, can’t find my wyvern,” Beruka admitted, Selena was about to ask how on earth Beruka misplaced a whole wyvern, but she stopped herself because Beruka was clearly already upset by the fact._

_“Well, it’s nothing to worry about, I’m sure that she’s around,” Selena said. “And we’re like the only living things around so she shouldn’t be too hard to find.”_

_“I know that,” Beruka muttered, but she didn’t comment when Selena started to help with looking._

 

 

Selena pulled herself back into the cart and tried to wipe the memory of that day from her mind. Looking to her left she found Laslow watching the scenery as they went, and Odin asleep next to him.

Selena looked down into her bag, where she’d stored all the knick knacks she’d bought at the festival. She picked up a bottle of sakura scented shampoo, it was in a glass bottle with a heart on the cap. It was overly cute and not very practical. She’d bought it for herself, but she thought she’d found a better use for it.

“Hey,” She said and scooted closer to Laslow, who turned around and stretched.

“Hey Selena, something wrong?” he asked.

“No, I just wanted to make sure,” Selena started and paused, thinking of the best way to make this the least embarrassing for her. “Did you remember to get Soleil and Ophelia souvenirs?”

“No? Was I supposed to? They didn’t ask,” He replied in confusion. Selena let out another over dramatic sigh.

“You’re so dense. In Hoshido it’s a custom to get family and co-workers souvenirs when you travel, Even when they don’t ask.”

“Is that really necessary? I mean we’re not Hoshiden,” Laslow pushed back, but he knew where this was going. Selena was always looking for every possible excuse to spoil Ophelia and Soleil.

“Soleil likes flowers, so this is good for her,” Selena said and gave Laslow the bottle of shampoo. “And I wonder if I have any loose gems for Ophelia.”

“Urg,” As if in response to his daughter’s name, Odin stirred next to his friends. “Have we reached our haven?”

“It’ll be another few hours until we make it to Windmire!” Elise strode up to the cart on her horse. She’d been going around to let the people know how much further, not that they hadn’t already guessed that.

“Thanks Milady,” Laslow called after her as she trotted away.

“Yup!” She called and went to talk with Corrin.

“Anyway, Odin did _you_ get Ophelia and Soleil anything,” Selena asked. Odin sat up and started digging in his bag.

“I thought Ophelia would appreciate this!” He said and pulled a slightly muddy rock out of the pocket. “I can feel it’s arcane energy,” Before he could keep going Selena cut him off.

“Absolutely not! Give her this instead,” She said and shoved a crystal necklace at him.

“It might be externally appealing sure, but this bought trinket has not been bathed in the pure light of many Hoshiden moons!”

“Fine, then give the necklace to Soleil and the muddy rock to Ophelia, after you bathe it in water, and soap,” Selena and Odin glared at each other and Laslow laughed.

“Well then, what do you have for the girls then Selena?” Laslow asked and the girl turned back and puffed her chest proudly.

“For Ophelia, I got a divination scroll, and Soleil, I bought some more Konpeito,” She said.

“I’m sure they’ll be enchanted by your gifts,” Odin laughed.

“Speaking of gifts,” Selena started and narrowed her eyes at Odin, “You do still have the gifts we settled on for them, right?”

Odin gulped and grumbled, having thought that their being in public would have protected him from this topic.

 

 

_Joining Corrin’s army and falling into Valla had left Odin with little time to think of much, not that he minded. He hadn’t wanted to talk to Selena or Laslow since Niles and Leo had been married before they’d left Kerkenburg._

_He was sure that Selena would go back to scolding him for having a crush on the people that had tried to get him killed in the past, like she had when she’d first found out. He knew Laslow would try to tell him that the heartbreak would pass in ways he thought were subtle. He knew their reactions, so he was better off sulking in a corner and only coming out to fight, rather than trying to socialize._

_The first sign the newly formed army had gotten that anything was going to go wrong was when Prince Takumi almost fell off a collapsing bridge, and things had gone downhill from there._

_In that moment Odin had only focused on protecting Lord Leo after the fight had broken out, he’d managed to stay close to Leo and Niles._

_Odin struck down a Vallite as Leo started to complain, “These things are relentless!” Leo’s dark magic struck down another as he’d talked._

_“Perhaps they just enjoy being under your boot, I can’t say I’d blame them,” Niles tried to joke only to be told to shut up by Leo, and Odin tried to ignore the knots forming in his guts. The battlefield had to be the worst place to start feeling jealousy._

_The three of them had been so caught up in their own conversation that they’d failed to notice the enemy approaching until scroll magic flew over their heads and they turned to see Orochi saving them._

_“Lady Azura and Lady Corrin seem to have found how to beat them, they said we just need to support them until it’s over!” She informed them._

_“Alright then,” Leo said and shot at an enemy behind Orochi, who whirled around and finished it off._

_Odin surveyed the battlefield when he’d assessed that nothing was coming his way. He’d found Lord Xander standing his ground with Peri and the Nohrian border guards that Corrin’s group had picked up somewhere. He noticed that Beruka didn’t have her wyvern and was sticking close to Selena. They seemed to be helping protect the flyers from archers._

_It had bothered him that Laslow wasn’t with Lord Xander and it made his blood run cold when he hadn’t been with Selena either._

_“Orochi!” He yelled to get her attention as he finished off the enemy she’d been attacking. “Have you seen Laslow around?”_

_“The other Nohrian?” She asked confused. “He’d been with Saizo last I checked. Is this something to be worrying about right now?” She asked harshly, and he figured that, no it wasn’t. But a feeling in his gut told him that it was as he turned back to guarding Leo._

_After they won the battle, there was a fight about whether the kid Corrin had been protecting was at fault. Odin didn’t care though he still hadn’t been able to find Laslow, or Saizo for that matter._

_“Selena!” He yelled out. “Have you seen Laslow?”_

_“What? No, is he in trouble?” She asked confused. Odin was about to explain when the sight of two battered Hoshiden figures approached._

_“Hana? Saizo?” Corrin called to them as they approached. Hana’s face only grew darker as she approached them. “What’s wrong?”_

_“Lady Azura,” Saizo ignored Corrin as he tried to keep his voice steady. “What happens to someone who falls over the edge of the land here?”_

_Azura looked down at their roll and gulped, having figured out what happened. “Unless someone catches them, they die,” She said darkly. “Where is Laslow, he’s the only one missing.”_

_Saizo just bowed his head, Selena and Odin both felt dread wash over them. Corrin was the first to protest. “No! That shouldn’t have happened! I told you all to retreat if it got too bad!”_

_“He wasn’t hurt, he jumped in front of me and got knocked over,” Hana muttered, she then turned to Selena. “This is your fault you know!”_

_Odin hadn’t processed what had happened before Selena yelled out “What?!” through her tears she was trying to keep down._

_“You’re the one that said it would be fine! If I had gone after him I could have,” Hana stuttered before looking up darkly. “Did you want him gone or something?”_

_The next sound that rang out was Selena punching the swords woman, before turning and running away._

_“Hey! Come back here!” Hana yelled after her._

_“Selena!” Camilla tried to call after her but stayed by her sister’s side as she shook._

_“We were, we were supposed to, we were going to prevent anyone else from dying,” Corrin muttered. After Scarlet’s death Corrin had instituted harder rules to prevent anyone else from following after Scarlet. Corrin had been so sure she could get them through the war without losing anyone else._

_Odin turned and saw Xander sitting down holding his temples and Peri with a vengeance in her eyes, if the tensions between the Hoshidens and Nohrians had been high that morning, their group was on the brink of war now._

_Odin didn’t want any part of it as he turned to try and find Selena._

 

 

Odin turned his head left to see Corrin sitting in the next caravan over as she turned a page in the book she’d been reading. He noted that the title was in the traditional Hoshiden script, she must be practicing. The girl was a socialite and naïve to a fault, but it had been those very traits that had helped her lead their group to peace with only one casualty.

Odin knew however, that his thoughts about the admiration he held for the woman who’d fallen in his view was just a way to avoid thinking about what his friends were pushing him on now.

“Well? You haven’t lost them, have you?” Selena pushed.

“Of course not,” Odin muttered and pulled out the three bracelets Selena had bought for him to give to Leo and Niles. “Do we need to breach this topic, here?” he asked meekly.

“Oh, absolutely,” Laslow laughed.

Odin looked down at the three bracelets, they all had the same small round gem beads broken up by smaller glass ones, the three bracelets were jade, amber and pearl respectively. He’d already been drawn to the pearl bracelet himself and decided that he’d give Niles the Jade one and Leo the amber one.

Selena hummed in approval when she saw that he indeed still had them. “Just so you know, I don’t want to hear that you panicked and called them friendship bracelets okay? And don’t agree if one of them calls them friendship bracelets either,” She pushed and Odin felt his cheeks flushing, anyone who was interested could hear this conversation.

“You can’t call them symbols of friendship either,” Laslow joined in, cutting off a loophole that Odin hadn’t even thought of himself yet. “Nothing that even remotely means friendship, got it?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Odin said hoping to get his friends to stop talking.

“Oh and!” Laslow kept going, at least he had leaned in to say the next part quietly. “Don’t give them the bracelets separately, or they might take it the wrong way.”

If Odin hadn’t been blushing before, he definitely was now. He shoved the bracelets back into his bag saying that he knew that already.

 

 

_Azura and Corrin had done their best to keep their army in one piece, but Odin had only heard the periphery of it, Lord Xander was torn about losing another retainer, but he had put that aside long enough to keep Peri from ripping Hana in two._

_It was a little after dinner time that Odin finally found Selena sitting away from camp behind a large rock. He didn’t say anything as he sat down next to her._

_“They said it was my fault,” Selena said instead of greeting Odin, he didn’t reply. “She said I wanted him to! As if I wanted any of this, why would I_ want _this?”_

_“I saw you, you weren’t anywhere near the edge,” Odin tried to side with her. He wasn’t sure what had possessed Hana to say any of that. Selena took a deep breath and Odin noticed her wipe at her eyes. He wondered why she wouldn’t just let him see her true emotions._

_“… We’re going to have to tell Lucina,” Selena finally said barely above a whisper._

_Odin hadn’t even thought that far ahead, and it sent a shudder through him. Dear gods, they were going to have to tell Lucina they let her brother die, and Uncle Chrom and Aunt Olivia. They were going to have to tell everyone, unless._

_“Maybe,” Odin muttered. He hadn’t thought about going home at all up until that point. Azura had said that people could be saved if you catch them. “Maybe we don’t.”_

_Selena made a small sound instead of forming an actual question, before going back to wiping her tears feverishly._

_“We have the means to save him you know,” Odin said. “And I know that it would trap us here, but I don’t want to go back just to let everyone know that we made that choice.”_

_He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “And if you don’t want to, I’ll just take the crystal when you’re not looking! I’m dead serious-”_

_“Odin,” Selena asked in her signature indignant tone, lacking the sadness she’d been displaying from that point. When Odin looked to her she was standing up and slightly puffed cheeks were the only sign that she’d been crying. “Are you going to keep ranting, or are you going to come with me to explain the situation to the royalty?”_

_Odin had forgotten what he’d been saying as he scrambled to his feet. “You, don’t you want to think about it more?” He asked._

_“Do you?” Selena shot back. “Like you said, I don’t want to explain this to them. And,” Selena stopped. “I’ve had the feeling something’s been off all day.”_

_Selena and Odin stood in a tent with Camilla, Xander, Leo, Corrin and Azura. They had gathered everyone by saying that they knew something about Laslow. They’d been cagy about what that was though._

_“So?” Xander asked, “Selena you didn’t, did you?”_

_Selena bit her tongue so that she didn’t scream at the accusation again. “No. Laslow is one of my best friends, I’d never,” Xander nodded, of course he’d side with her. Selena dug in her pocket until she found the crystal orb and held it out in her hand. “However, there’s something that we never told you.”_

_“Where did you get that?!” Azura all but screamed. It was the loudest anyone in the tent had ever heard her._

_“We, Odin, Laslow and I,” Selena took a deep breath before thinking of the facts she and Odin had agreed on sharing. “We’re time travelers, we were asked to come to this time to help with the fight against Anankos.”_

_“The Crystal Selena is holding, it can take us to any time or place,” Odin joined in. “We were supposed to use it to return to our own time. But after recent events,” He stuttered off. He could feel Leo looking at him concerned, he rarely spoke plainly around Leo._

_“You want to go back to save Laslow,” Corrin finished his sentence._

_“Yes,” Selena confirmed. “But if we do that, we’ll have no where to go after the war, so I guess we’re asking if it’s okay for us to stay longer than planned.”_

_Xander let out a sigh and sat down in the chair behind him, he’d been pushing the palms of his hands into his eyes, trying not to appear to be crying, but the loss of another retainer had shaken him badly. “Is that all you’re worried about?” He asked._

_“Of course, we’ll still want you around,” Camilla added. “I just can’t believe you’re time travelers, are you from the future? Or the past?”_

_Odin looked to Selena for guidance. “We… it matters not,” He finally said. He could tell that the family knew he was just dodging the question. “It’s far enough away that no records survive in either direction.”_

_“If this works, there should be no gap for you from when we leave to when we return,” Selena said and turned to Odin holding the crystal. Before they could further protest the two thought hard about that morning when they’d been preparing to march and light filled the tent._

_Odin tried to tell him that he’d died, but Laslow hadn’t felt like it. He’d thrown himself in front of an attack headed in Hana’s direction and the next thing he’d known he was on Beruka’s wyvern with Odin as Selena screamed at Saizo and Hana to turn around. And before he had another chance to ask what Odin had meant by died, Selena was shoving them into some random deeprealm._

_None of them had ever been to the deeprealms before, so as they crossed they were taken aback by the beauty of the field it had dumped them in._

_“Oh! Hello, Soleil wasn’t expecting anyone,” One of the caretakers walked over to the group. “She’ll be thrilled.”_

_“Yeah,” Selena said. “We need a place to stay for a while, I figured she’d be happy to meet more people.”_

_“Who’s Soleil?” Odin asked._

_“She’s an Orphan that Corrin found in Cyrkensia, Corrin didn’t want to turn her loose back into the warzone, so she had Lilith set up a deeprealm for her.” Selena explained as a small child with wild choppy ash colored hair ran over from outside a wooden house._

_“Ah Hello!” She said and smiled happily. Odin and Laslow could see that she had lost one of her front teeth. Selena smiled back and raised the octave of her voice._

_“Hello there Soleil! You’re so big now! I bet you don’t even remember me,” She said and bent down to look at the kid from eye level._

_Soleil thought about it for a few seconds before shrugging. Selena reached up and rubbed her hair._

_“That’s fine, I’m Selena! Don’t forget it again!”_

_“He-he! Alright then! Oh! Miss Selena, do you want to come with me on a picnic?”_

_“That sounds nice, why don’t you go get ready then?” Selena said before picking the kid up and passing her to the caretaker._

_“Before all that,” Laslow said with a dark tone and Selena turned to him. “Will you tell me what’s going on now?_

_“We, may have done something important without your consent,” Odin said and Laslow turned to him even more confused._

_“You fell off the side! You realize you would have died if Odin hadn’t caught you?!” Selena asked and Laslow suddenly got what they were talking about._

_“You died, we had to use the stone Anankos gave us to be able to save you,” Selena said._

_“You did, what?” Laslow asked angrily._

_“It was that or let you die!” Selena snapped, before looking down guilty, hoping the people in the house hadn’t heard them yelling._

_“That’s, I mean. Thank you but,” Laslow wasn’t sure how to reply to this. “This means we can’t go home huh? You honestly gave that up for me?”_

_“Yeah,” Selena said. “But you know at least this beats having to help raise our younger selves,” She tried to get the mood back up but Odin turned away to look at the house and Laslow rubbed his eyes._

_At that point Soleil came running out of the house again, with boots on and holding a basket in her hand. “Are you ready to play?” She asked oblivious to the negative atmosphere around her guests._

_“Yep, we are. Why don’t you go find a spot and we’ll follow after you,” Laslow said to her when Selena hadn’t taken the lead that time._

_As Soleil ran off ahead of the group, Laslow turned to Selena, “Hey you said she’s an orphan, right?”_

_“Yeah, why?” Selena asked. Soleil turned around and waved at them that she wanted to sit there, Odin ran ahead to help her spread the blanket in her basket._

_“I think, if we’re staying…” Laslow started. “Then there’s no harm, right? She’s a bright kid, she deserves a family.”_

_Selena huffed. Laslow had no idea what it meant to be a parent, but really that could be said about any of the parents in their group. Jakob and Felicia had nearly divorced in front of their child according to rumors._

_“I don’t think I’m the one you have to ask these questions to,” Selena said and gestured to Soleil._

_Laslow smiled and pulled something out from his shirt pocket, he’d kept it on his person since they’d gone back in time to save Ylisse. His mother’s headband had gotten him through so much._

_Selena eyed him curiously, but didn’t say anything, just as he never said anything about the coins she kept on a chain, just as neither of them ever commented on the broken staff piece Odin always kept around._

_“Soleil?” He asked and got on a knee to look at the girl on her eye level._

_“Hm? Yeah?” She asked._

_“It must be lonely, here on your own,” He continued, and the girl looked down confused._

_“Yeah, miss caretaker says that normally the parents of the children in the deeprealms visit them,” Soleil said glumly. “Ah! But I know I should be grateful! Lady Corrin had no reason to take me in…”_

_Laslow took a deep breath and put his mother’s headband on the small girl, it looked more like a scarf than a headband, but she’d grow into it. “If you want, I can start coming regularly. I know what it’s like to feel lonely.”_

_Soleil looked down at the headband and smiled before hugging Laslow. Odin and Selena looked at each other with similar smiles on their face. They might be stuck here but that didn’t mean their lives were going to stop._

 

Laslow did feel bad pushing Odin on his crush but, if they were going to ever get him to act on his feelings it was necessary. Odin turned away from his two friends with a pout and Selena let out a little snicker before going back to watching Beruka fly.

Laslow watched the road ahead when he noticed someone approaching on a horse, he moved to Xander’s side lazily. The guy looked like he belonged to the castle so Laslow wasn’t on guard.

“Hail!” Xander said as the horse approached.

“Good day Milord,” The rider greeted. “I bear a letter from Krakenburg,” He said and pulled out a wax sealed letter before handing it to Xander.

“This is Leo’s seal,” Xander muttered. It had gotten the attention of the rest of the caravan that Xander had received a letter, they were meant to reach the castle in a few hour’s time, so what could be so important that it couldn’t wait.

“So, what’s it say?” Peri asked as she watched Xander’s brow furrow as he read.

“There’s nothing wrong with Leo is there?” Corrin asked, Elise nodded at her question.

“No, Leo’s in perfect health,” Xander dismissed his sisters’ worries. “He says that Charlotte and Camilla adopted a group of mercenaries while we were gone…”

Corrin’s gaze lightened up at that as she let out a laugh, “I suppose that’s what happens when we turn our backs on them for too long!”

“New friends!” Elise chimed in. “Oh! I can’t wait to get home then!”

“Does Lord Leo fear they’re a threat to Milady’s safety?” Beruka asked as she flew closer. Xander squinted at the letter again.

“No, he says that given time they could be loyal citizens,” He paused after reading that and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Meaning they aren’t even citizens.”

“I mean,” Corrin tried to keep her brother calm. “It’s not like Charlotte or Camilla are dumb, if they trust these people I’m sure that it’s because they are trust worthy!”

“… Thank you, Little Princess,” he said with a sigh.

“I for one can’t wait to meet them!” Elise said before kicking her heels into her horse to get him to go faster.

“Don’t split off we’re almost to the castle anyway!” Xander yelled after her, she slowed down with a slight pout.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter, I promise.


	10. Reunion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Someone asked on the last chapter how Ophelia was born because she still had the Exalt's Brand. I wasn't able to fit this explanation in the story anywhere, but there's a spell in universe that allows couples to have children without giving birth. Odin used that spell on his own, making Ophelia biologically more of a sister to him and Brady than his child. Sorry for the confusion! ^_^"

For all Xander had tried to keep Elise in line until they got home, she’d bolted off ahead of them when they’d gotten to the castle gates. Xander sighed as he climbed off his mare to walk into the castle. Laslow helped Arthur and Peri with the luggage as Selena and Beruka started to walk the animals to the stables.

Effie and Percy had been waiting for the group to return in front of the castle’s main doors and that’s where the group found Elise.

“Percy! Did you miss your favorite auntie?” Elise said and spun the small boy around as Effie chuckled.

“Not really, Aunt Charlotte came back early so she wasn’t gone long,” Percy said avoiding Elise’s eye contact as the girl tried to hide her emerging tears. Odin approached the scene carefully as Effie tried to get her son to apologize to Elise, who was clearly over reacting.

“Greetings! I must pass the torch back to its rightful owner,” Odin said, and Effie rolled her eyes.

“Thanks for watching Lady Elise Odin, I know you wanted to go with your friends.”

“It was a joy, though, I do believe Elise is blessed with another level of energy.” Odin said. He’d gotten so used to being the energetic one, he’d underestimated Elise’s bubbly nature.

“Hah, that just means you need more training! Maybe you could get your lord to join you, gods know he needs it,” Effie stopped when Arthur walked over and joined in the mess she and Odin had been ignoring.

“Percy my boy! How have you been?” He asked and picked his son up out of Elise’s grip.

Percy didn’t say much as he grumbled and hugged his father back, praying that he’d finally be put down. “I’ve been great Dad,”

“I’m sure! You’ve had a front stage seat to seeing new warriors being born!” Odin said as Percy glared at him.

“I haven’t really been bothering them. The same can’t be said for Ophelia though,” Percy turned away. That certainly caught Odin’s attention.

“Why is that?” He asked, and Percy just shrugged.

“She and Forrest’s group have been spying on them since they came here,” Percy answered.  “Though none of them will say why.”

“Well that’s, worrying,” Odin said. Ophelia sometimes let her acting get out of control but he thought that Forrest, at the least, would keep her in line. According to Percy it sounded like they’d all been spying on the new people.

“What’s worrying?” Laslow asked as he threw Odin’s bag at him. Odin caught it before replying.

“Ophelia and Soleil have been bothering the new people apparently,” Odin said and watched Laslow’s brow furrow.

“great, I suppose I’m going to have to apologize to a bunch of new women,” Laslow thought out loud, this might be dangerous.

“Well, if it’s any consolation, I think the group is nice enough,” Effie said. “I haven’t really talked to any of them, but a few did help Felicia and Flora with the laundry the other day.”

“Effie!” Selena yelled over her two friends, clearly not caring about their presence. “Do you know where Lady Camilla is?”

Effie tilted her head a little, “No but I’d think she’d be waiting for you two in her room?”

Selena muttered something to Beruka before the two bolted into the castle with little other word on what they were doing.

“Hey Selena! Tell us what you find out about the new people!” Laslow called after her.

Selena stopped her charge to turn around and yell back, “Get your own info!” before running back to where Beruka was, Odin and Laslow both laughed at that.

“Are they, alright?” Elise asked watching them run away.

“They’re just worried their essence has been replaced with the new variety, a silly worry given the nature of their liege!” Odin said to Elise.

“So… they don’t like the new people, even though they haven’t met them yet?” Elise asked getting annoyed at the thought.

“Knowing how Selena works Milady,” Laslow started to defend his friend. “I believe her opinion will change after spending some time with the new people.” After Elise was satisfied with Laslow’s prediction, he moved to grab his friend by the arm. “Now if you’ll excuse us, it sounds like we need to find our daughters!”

“He he! What did Soleil do while we were gone?” Peri asked from Xander’s side.

“Oh, uh, That’s what I’m going to find out,” Laslow said, not quite wanting Soleil to get in more trouble than necessary if she’d had some reason for the spying.

 

 

Selena charged through the castle with Beruka on her heels, in the back of her mind she knew the two of them were over reacting. But having been left with nothing to do but bounce their anxieties off each other, Beruka and Selena knew the only way to get rid of the fears were to hear it from Camilla’s mouth.

The two stopped their charge in front of the door to their liege’s room and took a breath before Selena knocked.

“Lady Camilla? It’s Selena, Beruka and I have returned,” She said and waited for a reply. Instead of calling to them, Camilla threw the door open and scooped both of them up in a single hug.

“Oh! Beruka! Selena! I missed the two of you so much!”

“We did too, Milady,” Beruka said as she gasped for air, while Selena thought that Camilla had been the one who forced the two of them to take a vacation.

“Oh! I’m sure you’ve heard of the new people!” Camilla said and brought her retainers into her room. There were three figures sitting around the table and Selena did a double take.

Selena couldn’t get her brain to process what was happening in front of her. The three people at the table, were Gerome, Cynthia and Kjelle. She was using all her brain power to reason it away, that they just looked like her old friends but, it was all too similar. Gerome even had the same dumb mask.

“These dears are named Kjelle, Cynthia and Gerome,” Camilla said and made a gesture to Selena’s old friends. She seemed to be willfully ignoring the building tension in the room. “I was just talking with them about long term housing for their mounts,” Selena let out a nervous laugh to show that she was still somewhat present in the conversation. Maybe they just looked like them while also having their names?

“My name is Beruka, I’m one of Lady Camilla’s retainers,” Beruka said quickly, like she was putting a claim on Camilla. She turned to Selena to repeat the claim.

 “Selena, dear?” Camilla tried to get her attention, but Selena barely heard her. Kjelle stood up, her face reflecting what Selena was sure was the same expression on hers.

“Uh, are you, Sev-” As she opened her mouth Selena felt panic take over her actions. She charged at the table and all but vaulted it as she jumped over to get Kjelle to not say her name.

She heard Cynthia shriek from her side, the first thing she’d made her little sister say in years was a scream, a dark part of her brain commented. Camilla yelled at her to stop and even Gerome had reacted verbally, but she didn’t have the peace of mind to hear it.

She’d succeeded at sending her and Kjelle tumbling backwards so she was sitting on top of her old friend’s stomach. 

“Ah! What the hell S-” Kjelle tried to talk but this time Selena got her hand over her mouth.

“No!” Selena had no idea how to deal with this, what was she going to do now?

“Hey!” Gerome’s voice yelled at her from behind. When she turned around he was coming at her with his fists balled. He threw a punch that she ducked before standing up and balling her own hands and aiming for his gut. “Sever-”

Her punch landed, cutting off her name a little too late for her liking. Kjelle and Gerome must have been rusty since she’d gotten away with as much as she had.

Kjelle stood up and was trying to make herself as calm as possible. Selena was still panicking and the only thing that pulled her out of the state was Cynthia’s voice yelling, “Big Sister!”

Selena’s world went black and she turned to the voice just in time to see her liege as she reached to pick Selena up by the collar.

If the last minute had been a second to Selena, the next few moments were equivalent to the years she’d been in the castle.

“Are you done, _Severa_?” Camilla’s voice was hard. Selena felt small like a child. How did Camilla know? How?! Slowly Camilla put Selena down and her legs nearly gave out from the shaking. When had she slipped up?

“How?” Selena asked as she turned to face her liege. She could see Cynthia hovering on the side of the conversation, big eyes full of worry.

“You don’t need to worry about your secret,” Camilla rubbed Selena’s shoulders where she’d grabbed her. “The whole castle’s been keeping it for quite a while.” Selena was starting to feel nauseous again.

“What?” Selena asked and shifted away from Camilla slightly, turning to check where Kjelle and Gerome were. They were watching carefully.

“If you’d wished to keep your real name a secret you should have kept a tighter leash on Odin’s mouth,” Beruka commented.

“Dammit Odin, I’m gonna punch him,” Selena muttered.

“You already did,” Camilla commented with a giggle. “At Leo’s last birthday party, you two were too drunk to remember it and Laslow was already asleep so…”

Now that Selena was thinking about it, they had told her that she’d broken Odin’s nose while they were both drunk, had that been why? And if it had just been Selena’s name then they could recover from it.

Cynthia looked confused between Selena, Beruka and Camilla. “Ah, Uh, Odin? Laslow?” Her face looked a little hopeful and Selena grumbled. At the same time Camilla mouthed something at her and she burst, “Inigo and Owain?!”

Selena suddenly felt an urge to hit her head against the stone walls.

 

 

Odin followed the royal family into the castle until he decided they were far enough in that Leo wouldn’t get mad at him for abandoning his post. He made a cough to get the attention of the group. “I must report to Lord Leo before anything else. Luckily his thirst for knowledge makes his routine rather easy to guess.”

“Ha ha! Odin just called Leo a nerd!” Elise laughed before getting chided by both of her present siblings.

“Alright then. Say hi to Leo for me,” Corrin said in her peaceful voice as she put her hand on Elise’s shoulder.

“I’ll leave locating the girls to you,” Odin turned to Laslow who nodded.

“Alright, Oh! Don’t forget what we talked about!” Laslow added in after that. With some confusion from the others about what Laslow had meant, Odin turned on his heels and started walking to the library. He wasn’t running from what Laslow brought up, no matter what his friends would have to say on the matter later.

He slowed down as he got further away, the library was far enough away that he needed to conserve his energy, _especially since I might be chasing Ophelia later,_ Odin thought. Well at least he’d be able to ask Leo about the new people and guess why the girls had been interested in them.

Odin took the last turn and was greeted by the sight of Leo, unaccompanied by Niles. He also looked annoyed and that made Odin nervous, had they gotten into a fight while he was gone?

“Milord! We’ve returned!” Odin called out to him and all at once Leo looked up and tried to smile, but he honestly just looked stressed.

“That’s good to hear, we missed you Odin,” Odin tried not to smile too widely at that as Leo kept talking. “By any chance do you know if Xander got my letter?”

“Oh yes! Your words were the reason everyone hurried back, they were all excited to meet the new warriors of shadow!” Odin burst.

“We’re not at war anymore Odin, there’s no need to call them warriors,” Leo corrected.

“Oh? Uh then bearers of shadow?” Odin volunteered, and Leo laughed.

“Yeah that works perfectly, after all we’re all bearing Niles,” Leo burst. As he talked there was a crash from the library and Odin turned to it nervously. When he turned back to Leo he’d gone back to pinching his nose. Muttering something about hoping the bookcases were still useable.

Maybe against his better judgement, Odin leaned into the open door that led to the library. Inside he’d identified four figures running around. Niles was the first he saw and he gave Odin a small wave before the girl he’d been fighting with threw a book at him and screamed.

That’s when Odin felt his blood run cold. He never thought he’d hear the phrase “BLOOD AND THUNDER!” yelled at the top of a girl’s lungs again, but sure enough: the girl attacking Niles was Noire.

Odin laughed as he wondered if he should try and stop his two friends from fighting. That idea was stopped in it’s tracks when he couldn’t decide who he’d side with. Instead he turned his attention to the other two figures in the room.

One of them was standing up and facing away but Odin didn’t need to see her face to recognize the coat Morgan never took off.

She and the other person Odin couldn’t see were trying to organize the books that had fallen off a shelf. And just as Odin was about to move to see the other person, exactly who he feared bolted out from behind Morgan to stop Noire from slamming Niles into another bookcase.

“Brady!” Noire yelled when he’d grabbed her, even when she was slightly calmer she still seemed set on hurting Niles. Just like Leo had implied.

“This is getting old Noire!” Brady grumbled and kept his grip on her arm.

“really? I’m having a great time,” Niles laughed and Noire tried to launch herself out of Brady’s grip again.

As Odin watched his brother scold Noire under control he suddenly realized why Ophelia and Soleil had been interested in the “new group”. Maybe he should go try and explain things to her before talking to them. And then he wouldn’t be running away.

He’d been assuming the no one would notice him leaving, as Niles had only given him a wave before ignoring him, but that hardly made him invisible. Morgan ran over with a giant smile on her face like she was trying to hide the fact they were destroying the library.

“Hello! We’re new here! I promise Noire isn’t always like this, and I can have the shelves back up soon! Please don’t let this be your first impression of us!” She took a deep bow that prevented her from seeing Odin’s face. He wondered what the best way to keep her quiet was.

In the end he chose to run away before Morgan looked up, which failed miserably as Morgan sprinted after him when she noticed his feet leaving.

“No! Wait! I promise I can explain!” She yelled. _At least she hasn’t noticed yet,_ Odin thought to himself. Right as he was getting a lead on his younger cousin they charged past Leo who wasn’t happy with the display.

“Odin! Morgan! Halt!” Leo yelled down the hall. Odin stopped on reflex of listening to Leo’s voice for so long, Morgan took a little longer, slamming into him before taking a few steps back. Had she noticed yet? And how long could Odin get away with this before she did?

They both turned around to face Leo as he walked over, and Odin took the time to look at the back of his cousin’s head, she’d gained some height since he’d last seen her.

“What were you two doing?” Leo asked simply. Morgan began to panic.

“I was just, I mean! He walked in on a bad scene and I was just trying-” Morgan had turned around to look at the person she’d been chasing and stopped mid-sentence, jaw slack.

Odin took a deep breath, “And I, was trying to avoid this.”

Leo looked between the two of them confused. “Avoid what?”

“OWA-” Morgan yelled before Odin got his hand on her mouth. His cousin struggled but otherwise didn’t beat him strength wise.

“Milord,” Odin said and clamped a second hand around Morgan as she squirmed, Leo just looked on confused. “Where did you find these people?”

“Charlotte found them on the border.” Leo replied flatly as he watched the two of them. “What’s your relation to her anyway?”

“She’s uh, an old coll-OW!” Odin had started to lie when Morgan figured out how to get out of his hold and bit his palm.

“Owain! Where have you been?!” Morgan asked, before Odin could actually reply she kept going. “Lucina said that we had to be aware you’d follow us at some point, but have you been a few days behind us the whole time?! Did you go see Lady Tiki?  Did Uncle Chrom and your parents seriously let you follow us?!”

“Ah-hem,” Leo pointedly coughed when Morgan paused to take a breath. “Morgan this is Odin, He lives here at the castle, do you two know each other?” 

“Huh?” Morgan looked at him confused and Odin pinched the bridge of his nose.

“She’s clearly mistaken me for a doppelganger, she even called me-”

“By your birthname, Owain,” Leo cut him off, to Odin’s surprise and horror. “And I believe you were about to call her an old colleague, so how exactly do you two know each other?”

“That’s uh, I mean, how do you know-” Odin tried to get the conversation away from Morgan. And he really needed to know how Leo knew his birthname.

“He’s my cousin,” Morgan said quickly, and Odin flinched. “And Brady’s little brother.”

“Morgan!” He yelled.

“Well then someone’s lying,” Leo said and glared at the two of them. Morgan’s brow furrowed in confusion.

 

 

Xander walked the group down the hall to the throne room. He’d told Laslow and Peri the new people would be waiting for him to interview them and eventually sign the paperwork to grant them citizenship. Corrin and Elise followed behind Laslow and Peri, both eager to meet the people they were already set on making friends with.

“Shouldn’t we go find Charlotte first?” Elise asked her brother.

“No, I should go into this as neutral as possible, even if Charlotte and Leo have both determined them trustworthy,” Xander said as Elise pretended she understood.

Corrin opened her mouth to say something but at the same time a girl’s voice cried out in pain from down the hall. Corrin was the first to move, bolting to where the sound came from, everyone else on her tail.

“Is everything okay?” Elise asked when the rest of the group caught up to Corrin who was sitting on the floor, surrounded by the people Laslow assumed were the mercenaries Charlotte and Camilla had taken in. He hadn’t looked very close at anyone of them until his eyes fell on the short woman corrin was holding in her lap.

She looked an awful lot like she was a Manakete. She looked an awful lot like she was Nah.

“She’s pregnant, we think she’s gone into labor,” A voice that sounded a lot like Laurent responded to Elise’s worry.

“You think, I know!” Nah sneered at Laurent.

“In that case we should take her somewhere other than the hall,” Xander said as he bent down to take Nah from Corrin.

“I uh, I can go get Cassita,” Elise said.

“Yes please,” Xander said and then turned to Corrin. “Will you go with her?”

“Of course, come on Elise. Let’s hurry,” Corrin grabbed her sister’s hand and the two of them were off.

“Uh, um, who- who’s-” Yarne, that was definitely Yarne stuttering.

“Cassita is one of the best midwives in Nohr! I’m sure they’ll be back soon!” Peri said as she opened the door to the throne room.

“Oh! Wait, Prince Leo told us not to go in there until the king arrived,” That was Lucina’s voice coming out of a girl who definitely looked like Lucina, but some part of Laslow’s mind still hadn’t made the connection.

“It’s fine, follow me,” Xander told her, clearly deciding the group was too stressed to handle knowing who he was. “Laslow!”

“Yes Milord?” Laslow replied automatically, holding onto it like an anchor to reality while he felt he was in a dream.

“There’s a linen closet two doors down. Go get blankets,” Xander said and Nah grunted at another contraction. In that moment he looked like a far cry from the man Ryoma had to send into another room when Corrin had given birth.

Laslow nodded and turned around without another word. It was only as he was opening the door to the linen closet did any of it hit him. Those people he’d been standing with had been Nah, Yarne, Laurent and Lucina. That really hadn’t been his homesick mind playing tricks on him.

He grumbled and grabbed two neatly folded blankets and a pillow for good measure.

He shouldn’t get his hopes up, with travel between worlds came the chance to meet echoes of people you once knew. But still, there was an innate feeling of difference that you felt when something wasn’t right. It had taken him forever to get over that feeling with Saizo’s kid. Selena still wasn’t over it when it came to Caeldori.

Maybe he just hadn’t spent enough time around them to feel it yet, and there was only one way to test that, he thought as he pushed the throne room door open with his back.

Everyone had gathered off to the side of the room and it looked like Xander was in a shouting match with Laurent.

“What do you mean she’s only eight months pregnant? That’s not good!” Xander snapped and Laurent pushed the rim of his glasses up.

“Well the father’s-” He made a hand gesture in Yarne’s direction. Laslow stood and thought, would it have been weird for his Yarne and Nah to be having a kid? They’d been dating by the time he and the others left, but Yarne was a wimp at that kind of thing, maybe if Nah made all the first moves. “The father’s race normally has seven month pregnancies, it’s not an issue until it is!”

Nah let out another scream and Peri looked up and bolted to Laslow.

“Took you long enough!” She ran over and took the blankets out of his hands without so much as a second glance his way.

Laslow was still holding the pillow, and that was as good an excuse as any to head over and see if Nah knew him.  

“Sit up for a second?” He said and kneeled by her. She stared at him with wide eyes and he tried his best to ignore it. “It’s just a pillow,” He said after he got it behind her.

Laslow stayed there next to Nah waiting for her to say something, she seemed just like the Nah he knew so far.

“Dear gods! I’m already dead,” She finally said and threw herself back onto the pillow.

“W-What?!” Yarne yelped from Laslow’s other side, he’d been talking with Peri about something.

“Hah ha, No one’s dead yet,” Laslow replied. “And if we have any say in it no one is going to die either!” He added loud enough to be heard by Xander and Laurent who were still arguing about weather this was safe or not.

“You’ll have to forgive her,” Lucina bent down next to the two of them. “It’s just that you very much resemble our-”

“I am,” Laslow cut her off before she could finish her sentence. That had gotten the attention of everyone in the room.

“Oh. I uh,” Lucina seemed to be just as panicked as Yarne, so the words weren’t quite connecting in her mind.

“So I _am_ dead!” Nah grumbled again.

“No! You’re not dead and neither am I!” Laslow snapped. He knew it wasn’t fair, that Nah was in immense physical pain and had no way of knowing what had happened in Valla but being equated with being dead was a sore spot for him.

“Laslow!” Xander snapped at him as Nah yelled again. “Another outburst like that and I’ll have to ask you to leave.”

“Actually, you can leave right now!” Peri said and grabbed Yarne’s shivering frame, “This one would be much more help boiling water! Will you take him to the kitchen?”

Yarne was looking frightened between Peri, who was twisting his arm just out of Xander’s view, Nah, who was grinding her teeth waiting for the next contraction, and Laslow.

Laslow took a breath and stood up, not wanting to protest Xander’s unspoken order to do as Peri asked. Nah let out another grunt, “Hey if any of you are leaving, could you, I don’t know, go get Brady?!” She snapped.

“Oh!” Lucina burst, “Yes that’s a good idea,” She scrambled to her feet.

“Alright then,” Laslow took a breath and pinched his palm just to check once more that this was reality now. “Yarne, Sister, let’s go then.”

 

 

“So, Inigo,” Two paces out the door and they were already interrogating him, Laslow tried not to look too annoyed as he turned around and glared at Yarne. “Uh, who’s Laslow?”

“Laslow is the name I’ve been using here, I’d prefer you not use my real one. But right now we should focus on the task at hand,” He said as peacefully as possible, trying to forget snapping at Nah with anger that he’d bottled during the war.

“Oh, uh, yeah that makes sense,” Yarne muttered and kept pace with Lucina and Laslow.

“Inigo uh, Laslow,” Lucina stopped herself when she remembered what he’d just asked. “Why did- Where have, I mean how have, er- Are you okay?” Lucina had no idea how to approach the situation, and Laslow figured that just made two of them.

“I’m perfectly fine, why wouldn’t I be?” Laslow didn’t look back to the two of them as he led them down to the front of the castle, he had no idea where Brady was, why was he leading again?

Lucina and Yarne looked between themselves but neither of them spoke before another voice came down the hall.

“Laslow! We have a problem!” Selena came barreling around the corner and immediately her eyes fell on Lucina and Yarne.

“Yeah, I know,” Laslow replied sarcastically. “Do you happen to have Brady with you?”

“Brady? No. Look, we have a bigger problem!” Selena yelled, Laslow had to wonder what was a bigger problem than this. As Selena caught her breath the rest of her group caught up. Laslow made out Camilla and Beruka first, those two always stood out, next to them was Cynthia who looked like she hadn’t aged a day, Kjelle who had a noticeable bruise starting to form on her cheek, and dear gods, that was Gerome.

“We’re on our way to meet with Xander. Laslow, shouldn’t you be with him?” Camilla asked.

“Yeah, uh about that,” Laslow couldn’t think of a valid excuse, ‘I blew up at my pregnant friend and Xander threw me out?’

“Nah went into labor so In- Laslow! was going to help us find Brady,” Lucina explained as Selena gave Laslow a weird look, as much as he wanted to know what Selena’s bigger problem was he needed to focus on Nah’s labor.

“She’s what?!” Kjelle gasped and soon she and Cynthia were crowding Yarne and Lucina with questions on what happened. They were going to be busy for a while, Laslow didn’t really want to talk to Gerome but he seemed to be the only real option left.

“So, uh, do you know where Brady is?” Laslow asked and turned to his old friend, his ex, a voice that sounded a little too much like Selena corrected him in his head. He desperately avoided looking anywhere even near his mask.

“No, he ran off with Morgan,” Gerome replied. Laslow did a mental tally in his head, that was almost everyone, Noire was the only one unaccounted for.

“The other mercenaries were fighting with Niles in the library,” Beruka commented plainly.

“Really? You’re sure?” Laslow turned and looked her in the eyes.

Beruka nodded, “That’s what Jakob just told me.”

“Thank you Beruka!” Laslow bolted in the direction of the library, leaving Yarne and Lucina to deal with filling everyone else in on the rest.

 

 

Leo glared at Odin and Morgan until they followed him back into the library, where at least Brady had been able to keep the peace between Noire and Niles. Odin tried to hide his face behind his hand, but Morgan laughed at him before mimicking his signature pose from his time with the shepherds.

“Brady, Noire,” Leo called as he entered. The two of them looked up, Odin wondered if he could get away with bolting again. “Are the two of you acquainted with someone named Owain?”

“Leo!” Niles snapped at him and Odin turned his head, did Niles know too? The guilty look in Niles’s eyes when their gazes met said yes.

“You, you’re not messing with us, are you?” Noire’s face went dark again and Odin swore he saw Leo flinch.

“Owain!” Brady burst and ran forward, Morgan took a step away as Brady embraced his brother. “Where the hell have you been?! We missed you like crazy,” Odin tried his best to keep a straight face and not let his mask break, but it was all too much.

And then as he started to hug his brother back, a reminder of why he kept his mask up burst into his vision.

“Missiletainn Retribution!” Ophelia shrieked, holding a book.

“That’s not even a tome,” Soleil added dryly after Ophelia’s battle cry. Ophelia then chucked it at Brady.

The book hit its mark on Brady’s back, and he grumbled and turned around. “What’d I do this time kid?”

“Stay away from my father, Devil!” Ophelia yelled again and picked up another library book as Soleil came up from behind her and tried to get her to put it down.

Morgan had covered her mouth, likely to keep herself from laughing when the small girl assaulted Brady, but she looked between Ophelia and Odin with wide eyes.

Noire was watching the girls carefully to see if Soleil would be able to keep Ophelia under control.

A beat of silence filled the room. Odin needed to get into this conversation before anything else happened.

“Ophelia, Soleil,” He spoke in a dark tone and both girls froze. They weren’t used to him being serious, he normally left that kind of stuff to Selena.

“Fa- Father?” Ophelia asked in a weak voice. Odin walked over and placed his hands on each of their shoulders.

“I have to apologize to both of you,” Odin lowered his head as they both looked at him, he raised his head and looked soleil in her eyes. “Your father, Selena and I have kept more information from you than we said.”

Soleil glared, “I knew it.” Odin nodded to her and turned around to face his old friends, nudging the girls to follow him.

“These are Morgan, Noire and Brady, they’re your Aunts and Uncle, okay?” He said and prayed that the others would have the sense to go along with it for now.

“I was right!” Ophelia said to soleil.

 “We both were, we both saw the brand,” Soleil added annoyed.

“The brand! You wanted to see my brand that time,” Morgan said and started taking her gloves off.

“You really have it?” Soleil asked, and the two girls watched as Morgan showed them her matching birthmarks. Ophelia reached over to the bandage she’d tied over her own brand the first time she’d seen Morgan’s.

Odin watched nervously as Ophelia showed the three adults her brand and they started to crowd her.

“It’s just like yours,” Noire commented and looked at Odin.

“Father doesn’t have it though,” Ophelia said to the woman confused as Brady looked between her and Odin about two times before someone else cut in.

Niles let out a pointed cough. “This is a heart-warming conversation, but how in the world did you two get in the library?”

“Uh,” Ophelia looked to Soleil. “Divine magic?”

“Right,” Leo said, “And did Nina help with that ‘divine magic’ at all?”  

“… No?” Soleil muttered, more a question than a statement. So that was a yes.

“Thank you, Prince Forre-” The door to the library that Leo had been standing in front of opened straight into his back. “Oh! Lord Leo!”

“Dad?” Soleil asked as Laslow ran over to help the prince off the floor. Forrest and Nina were leaning around from outside to see how things were going in the library. 

“Soleil! I’m glad I found you!” Laslow said and walked over.

“You look winded friend,” Odin commented.

“Hi Inigo!” Morgan yelled into the conversation. And he turned to the last three of his friends. He looked over the three of them with a glazed look in his eyes before turning back to Soleil and giving her a single pat on the shoulder.

“I promise I’ll explain later,” and with that he stood up and walked right past Morgan. “Brady, you’re needed in the throne room.”

“Oh! I guess it is time for the interview, if Laslow is here,” Niles commented.

“Yeah those are probably canceled for the day,” Laslow said dryly, there was no way any of them were going to be able to focus on anything else until Nah’s child was delivered safely. “Nah went into labor. No one knows what to do.”

“Ah, shit. Start with that next time!” Brady snapped at his cousin and started moving for the exit before Leo could remember what he’d been trying to do.  

“Do you know if Nah is alright?” Noire approached Laslow to ask.

He nodded to reassure her, “She’s as well as she can be, the castle sent for a wet nurse and between her and Brady Nah has nothing to worry about.”

“We should still go wait for her,” Morgan muttered and looked at Odin and Laslow before turning to Soleil and Ophelia. “After that you guys owe us an explanation.”

Leo motioned for his family to start heading out of the library and everyone else followed after them.

“What’d we do?!” Soleil called after the two of them as they left the library.

 “You owe us an explanation too,” Niles commented. “I think we all just need to sit down and have a nice long chat and be honest with our feelings.”

“Don’t start anything again Niles,” Leo said and Nina laughed.

After the small silence that was made as everyone watched Niles and Noire stare at each other, Morgan raised her voice. “Hey! Hey Owain! What are these?!” She’d pulled out the three bracelets he’d been keeping in his bag.

“Not for you!” Odin snapped and tried to grab them away from his little cousin. Laslow laughed into his hand when he failed.

“I mean, obviously! You didn’t answer my question!” Morgan pushed.

“They’re Mementos, alright!” Odin finally grabbed two of the three bracelets away from his cousin.

“Three bracelets seems a little much for one person,” Noire replied.

“You know not of the cultures in this land,” Odin replied. Noire gave him a look but didn’t push it.

“Wait, but I don’t get it either,” Niles added.

“It’s a Hoshiden custom to bring souvenirs back to family and friends when you travel,” Laslow filled the crowd in. “He bought them for other people, right?”

“Oh, cool, here then,” Morgan gave him the pearl bracelet back.

“So, who are they for?” Leo asked over his shoulder.

Now Laslow felt bad for putting Odin on the spot. Odin’s face looked beat red and if Morgan or Noire really cared they could figure out his crush no problem.

“Uh, they’re for Ophelia and her lieges,” Odin caved. The kids perked up at that.

“Really? For us?” Nina asked.

“Yup, I’ve got something for Soleil too,” Odin said reaching for the necklace too before giving the gifts out to the kids. Ophelia ended up with the pearl bracelet, Nina with the amber one and Forrest with the Jade one.

After the group made their way to the front of the throne room, Laslow came up behind Odin and knocked his shoulder into Odin’s. “I’ll give you that you didn’t call them Friendship bracelets.”

“I’ll get it right next time,” Odin muttered in reply. They watched the crowd that had gathered outside of the throne room. Laslow noted that Corrin and Elise were back, Corrin was patting Xander on the back as Elise and Camilla laughed. Off a little further, the two boys saw Selena holding her little sister as Cynthia cried. She made eye contact but Laslow waved her off.

“This is really happening huh?” Lucina’s voice was suddenly on Laslow’s other side. “Hi Owain.”

“Greetings Lucina, it’s been eons,” Odin replied.

“Yes, it has.” Lucina said dryly. “You’ve all missed so much back home. But I suppose it was your absence that alerted us to our own problems.”

“Problems?” Laslow turned to his sister.

“Yes, but I believe we’d be better to wait for everyone to explain what happened.” Lucina said.

“Of course,” Odin replied absently. The three sat there in relative silence as Nah’s Scream came through the wood door again.

“The king thinks I’m a priest,” Lucina spoke again unprompted. Laslow snorted, at least she’d figured out he was the king.

“How’d that happen?” He asked. Xander wasn’t always the best at reading people but he wasn’t normally that bad either.

“You called me Sister when we left, I wasn’t sure how to reply so I agreed,” Lucina explained, this time Odin laughed.

“The day Lucina holds a scroll would be akin to Armageddon,” Odin said. Lucina laughed along with him.

Things were going to be okay from this point on, Laslow thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Every single time I re-read this I want to throw it all out and write everything again. I keep telling myself that it's better to be done and not perfect but it's hard. Thank you to everyone who's read the whole thing it means a lot to me!


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